Jump to content

Is getting stuff into orbit too "easy"?


Elthy

Is getting stuff into orbit to easy?  

164 members have voted

  1. 1. Is getting stuff into orbit to easy?

    • Yes, i would like to need bigger rockets
    • No, i like how its currently balanced
    • I think its to hard, smaller rockets would be better
    • I dont care/Im not sure


Recommended Posts

It's definitely not too easy. Making it harder would most probably frustrate and scare away even more new players than it already does. If you need more challenge as an experienced player, there's a mod for that. There is always a mod for that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Don't even need another tank for a powered landing, you'll have enough left.

Thing is, the option is there for more experienced players to make orbit right away if they want to, less experienced players can spend a bit of time doing some early contracts and unlocking some new parts to make it easier.

Should the beginning be engineered in such a way to make it so hard that even experienced players have a hard time though? The answer to that, if you look and pretty much any other game out there, is no.

Games need to be accessible at the start, and even most simulators try to steer new players to starting off easy, for example most flight sims put the player in a Cessna with no adverse weather as their default starting scenario.

After that of course things can be as hard as you make them for yourself, see how far you can get before upgrading any of the KSC buildings, no one said you had to upgrade as soon as possible ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's just grind for grind's sake, really. I'm not enthused.

I think I'd prefer to take the approach of making complex missions require complex rockets. Nerf pod torque so you need to build an RCS system or a separate reaction wheel. Nerf pod electricity, so you need batteries. Make batteries physics-significant and heavy. Ditto various science implements, particularly antennas. Add life support. Add duration requirements to certain contracts. Add a requirement for Kerbals to actually be present when you land on something, in specified numbers. Add contracts specifically for the return (and others for the transmission) of various science experiments, not just their collection. Add a decent aero system and re-entry heat so you can't throw any old thing into an atmosphere any old how and recover it as long as you put enough parachutes on it, and therefore have to figure out how to design and fly re-entry capable vehicles larger than a pod. Shift the tech tree around so that early parts are strictly less capable than later ones, perhaps by having tech unlock not just new parts but improvements to parts you already have. Change the rescue missions to require you to dock with an uncontrolled junk spacecraft. Add penalties to declining or letting expire certain contracts. Tighten contract deadlines so that you can't take forever to finish them.

There's lots of possible ideas out there, those're just some I've got. The point is you can add difficulty and challenge without making someone have to farm the same boring contract twenty times before they can do something else.

most of what you've just said can be fixed by mods and have already been done. (docking rescues makes no sense at early game because you might get rescues before docking ports)

the devs cant make everyone happy and they cant include everything- that's why there are mods if you want stuff(now and later) like better atmos, DRE, better contracts, better tech trees and part manipulation that's all available IF YOU WANT IT the devs dont want to over complicate the game for their sake and new players sake-we can choose if we want to add more stuff and add difficulty

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's definitely not too easy. Making it harder would most probably frustrate and scare away even more new players than it already does. If you need more challenge as an experienced player, there's a mod for that. There is always a mod for that.

The big step, IMO, is getting to orbit the first time. Managing that is an awesome feeling, y'know? That's why I don't want to delay it, because that's a big point on the curve. If you get to it, you're going to keep going. Especially if the game provides useful guidance on "here's some other goals for you to try".

But the point is that it shouldn't be "well I've got somebody in orbit, now I can do 90% of the game", but that's in practice basically what it is in vanilla. Once you can do that, right now very nearly everything else, perhaps excluding docking, is a matter of adding a couple of tanks of fuel and fiddling with manouver nodes. You can send that self-same Kerbal to Laythe somewhat easier than you can land and return him from the Mun.

EDIT:

most of what you've just said can be fixed by mods and have already been done.

I'm aware that mods can and do fix this. That simply suggests that these are not just my concerns, you know? It's especially relevant as KSP moves forward into a career mode, and not just sandbox fiddling. I want career mode to have a defined, reasonable progression of difficulty. Right now I could trivially land a dozen Kerbals on Duna with just about the same rocket I'm going to use to send three of them to the Mun.

(docking rescues makes no sense at early game because you might get rescues before docking ports)

That's an easily fixed conditional, and if your argument is "sense", I remind you that right now you can get rescue contracts before anybody has EVA suits. So how'd they get out there?

the devs cant make everyone happy and they cant include everything- that's why there are mods if you want stuff(now and later) like better atmos, DRE, better contracts, better tech trees and part manipulation that's all available IF YOU WANT IT the devs dont want to over complicate the game for their sake and new players sake-we can choose if we want to add more stuff and add difficulty

I'm not trying to overcomplicate the game. The idea is that the complexity is given in manageable stages. Proper aero is not complicated if you're building simple rockets; you put a point on the top and fins on the bottom. Anyone who has ever seen an arrow or a plane or a rocket will understand this (here, arguably, the >current< model is more complicated to grasp!) Ordinary planes are pretty simple in FAR too. Similarly, re-entry of just a pod, even in RSS with DRE, is not complicated. They're only complicated if you try to do complex things.

Absolute fundamentals like those or a career mode that matches your challenges to your resources and isn't a grind are not things mods should be relied upon to provide. They ought to be core elements. Look at tweakables, for example, or the new VAB tools, or even spaceplane wings. It'd be a poorer game without those-- but there were mods for all those, too. Should they have been left out and left to modders, then? I don't think so.

Now, life support, that one I can see an argument for, but I think adding life support to the game would have significant positive effects over and above simply the "realism" argument. In particular it makes long-duration missions much more challenging, which is good, because as I have alluded to before, right now if you can do an Apollo landing on the Mun... you can quite literally go anywhere else in KSP and do anything. There's not really any increase in challenge beyond that until you start doing self-imposed challenges-- in which case you may as well play sandbox and save yourself the grind pieces. Career is grindy at the beginning and trivial at the end and I want to fix both issues.

Edited by foamyesque
Link to comment
Share on other sites

so if you feel it's too easy AND you want challenge just turn the difficulty up or even if you dont want to do that just install a variation of RSS. If you like to get to orbit and make useless/expansive/beautiful/replicas/just dumb (and dont want to deal with science/funds/the overpowered, useless, abundent and boring parameter ) stuff fire up sandbox and play to your heart's content- if you are still not happy install mods there are thousands of them. still not happy?-learn to program and develop a mod-this is the beauty of moddable games (if you are still not happy go cry to someone else)

Misfire much? Please see post 14.

I 1) don't feel it's too easy, 2) nearly always play in sandbox, 3) used to use quite a few mods but my old machine can't cope with them any more *sob*, 4) and became a professional software developer in 1981, 3 years after learning to program, 5) am not crying - except possibly about the stupid tech-tree that starts manned.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Looking at this from my perspective, IE, one from which career mode does not exist, I believe the core game's difficulty curve is perfect.

Orbits are a simple business and you quickly get the hang of them. The real challenge lies beyond the grip of Kerbin's gravity well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But the point is that it shouldn't be "well I've got somebody in orbit, now I can do 90% of the game", but that's in practice basically what it is in vanilla. Once you can do that, right now very nearly everything else, perhaps excluding docking, is a matter of adding a couple of tanks of fuel and fiddling with manouver nodes. You can send that self-same Kerbal to Laythe somewhat easier than you can land and return him from the Mun.

With all due respect, that's pretty much what spaceflight is about. Getting to LEO and returning safely is the first major hurdle. Once you've got that down, everything else falls into place (in terms of rocketry) Rentry effects and life support are a different (albeit important) discussion.

500px-Delta-Vs_for_inner_Solar_System.svg.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Misfire much? Please see post 14.

I 1) don't feel it's too easy, 2) nearly always play in sandbox, 3) used to use quite a few mods but my old machine can't cope with them any more *sob*, 4) and became a professional software developer in 1981, 3 years after learning to program, 5) am not crying - except possibly about the stupid tech-tree that starts manned.

that was not pointed at you directly but as to people as a whole BTW notice the big Ifs in the text

I'm aware that mods can and do fix this. That simply suggests that these are not just my concerns, you know? It's especially relevant as KSP moves forward into a career mode, and not just sandbox fiddling. I want career mode to have a defined, reasonable progression of difficulty. Right now I could trivially land a dozen Kerbals on Duna with just about the same rocket I'm going to use to send three of them to the Mun.

well concerning that KSP is still Beta and in the stage of balancing all of it's mechanics it's fine for now- and yes there isn't much to do in KSP after the tech tree is done (unless you are bound to get all the science)- i myself haven't been to all the plants and moons because i have not interest in them- i spend most of my time in the VAB and SPH designing rockets and planes

That's an easily fixed conditional, and if your argument is "sense", I remind you that right now you can get rescue contracts before anybody has EVA suits. So how'd they get out there?

well that's logic not gameplay problem like the docking without docking ports(which is easily fixed yes) and yes a bit peculiar

I'm not trying to overcomplicate the game. The idea is that the complexity is given in manageable stages. Proper aero is not complicated if you're building simple rockets; you put a point on the top and fins on the bottom. Anyone who has ever seen an arrow or a plane or a rocket will understand this (here, arguably, the >current< model is more complicated to grasp!) Ordinary planes are pretty simple in FAR too. Similarly, re-entry of just a pod, even in RSS with DRE, is not complicated. They're only complicated if you try to do complex things.

Absolute fundamentals like those or a career mode that matches your challenges to your resources and isn't a grind are not things mods should be relied upon to provide. They ought to be core elements. Look at tweakables, for example, or the new VAB tools, or even spaceplane wings. It'd be a poorer game without those-- but there were mods for all those, too. Should they have been left out and left to modders, then? I don't think so.

Now, life support, that one I can see an argument for, but I think adding life support to the game would have significant positive effects over and above simply the "realism" argument. In particular it makes long-duration missions much more challenging, which is good, because as I have alluded to before, right now if you can do an Apollo landing on the Mun... you can quite literally go anywhere else in KSP and do anything. There's not really any increase in challenge beyond that until you start doing self-imposed challenges-- in which case you may as well play sandbox and save yourself the grind pieces. Career is grindy at the beginning and trivial at the end and I want to fix both issues.

is career grindy at lower levels? YEAH! is the solar system boring at this state? YEAH! but the problem in games is that not everyone is at the same level and advancing at the same rate for what someone see grindy and boring someone else can see as a challenge. please remember that the devs are stocking mods they think will add to the game for all and not for some just because we have them and we like them dosnt mean we need to have them all-if you want something just download it dont ask why not, just make it happen.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

With all due respect, that's pretty much what spaceflight is about. Getting to LEO and returning safely is the first major hurdle. Once you've got that down, everything else falls into place (in terms of rocketry) Rentry effects and life support are a different (albeit important) discussion.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/74/Delta-Vs_for_inner_Solar_System.svg/500px-Delta-Vs_for_inner_Solar_System.svg.png

I'm well aware of that. That's why all my suggestions haven't been to fiddle with the deltaVs or TWRs. There's a reason in real life we didn't send Neil Armstrong to Mars, and it wasn't because the Saturn V couldn't've boosted him there: there's challenges over and above your fuel fraction to consider, you know?

That's why I'm after stuff that you need more of if you're doing operations far from Kerbin, and stuff that makes landing the other stuff more challenging. The biggest hurdle to an interplanetary transfer in KSP is planning your burn, and we have an automated tool for that (but not for deltaV and TWR for planning your rocket, have fun new players). The difficulty curve right now is backwards.

is career grindy at lower levels? YEAH! is the solar system boring at this state? YEAH! but the problem in games is that not everyone is at the same level and advancing at the same rate for what someone see grindy and boring someone else can see as a challenge

I think you misunderstood me. Doing the same thing again and again isn't a challenge, as such. It's just repetitive, like fighting random battles in Pokemon. You just keep doing it until you level up, and meanwhile you're bored after the first dozen times. That's half the reason MechJeb's ascent autopilot is so popular; a lot of us have flown so many Kerbin ascents we could probably sleepwalk through it. This is why suggestions like "you can make it harder by using the custom difficulty sliders" don't move me; that doesn't really make it harder, it just makes everything take longer to do.

To make things more difficult you have to add complexity and more things to consider (and, therefore, more things to get wrong). To some degree this occurs as you move to larger rockets anyway, but it's not enough and it doesn't scale well at all until you get into monstrous sandbox-only machines. I am very conscious of the need to avoid overwhelming new players, so for the most part the effects of what I'm pushing-- life support, reentry heating, heavier power, aero, etc-- only start to come into play when you're trying longer, more complicated missions with higher rewards. By that point you've got the experience to start handling it.

As I conceive it, a pod ought to be able to hit low orbit, go around a few times, and return safely, your basic Mercury mission, on either no upgrades at all or with just the first science node. No need for extra power or life support or RCS or even a separate heatshield. If you're coming in from the Mun, though, you'll need power to get there and back, a small supply of consumables, and a single heatshield for the re-entry. It scales from there.

Make Minmus harder to reach, because right now, even with the inclination, the fact that it requires so much less rocket than the Mun makes it much easier than a Mun mission. Perhaps boost the inclination and make it heavily elliptical, so that even though in pure rocket you need less, it requires much more precision. This'd also let it serve as practice for interplanetary burns, I suspect.

Edited by foamyesque
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm well aware of that. That's why all my suggestions haven't been to fiddle with the deltaVs or TWRs. There's a reason in real life we didn't send Neil Armstrong to Mars, and it wasn't because the Saturn V couldn't've boosted him there: there's challenges over and above your fuel fraction to consider, you know?

That's why I'm after stuff that you need more of if you're doing operations far from Kerbin, and stuff that makes landing the other stuff more challenging. The biggest hurdle to an interplanetary transfer in KSP is planning your burn, and we have an automated tool for that (but not for deltaV and TWR for planning your rocket, have fun new players). The difficulty curve right now is backwards.

But this thread is about the "Hard" or "Easy" alternatives to getting to orbit around Kerbin.

I'm not dismissing your issues or suggestions, I'm in favor of some of them. (Not really so much about the capsules, Gemini capsules had internal translation capability and power generation)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But this thread is about the "Hard" or "Easy" alternatives to getting to orbit around Kerbin.

By modifying the payload to be larger and heavier because you need to haul more stuff with you, you necessarily make getting it into orbit harder in that you need to build a larger rocket. Then constrain the design space through various things so that you've got stuff encouraging you to make the rocket smaller (cost being the most obvious one, but there's also the pad weight restrictions and so on). There's how you manage difficulty.

You could also rescale the solar system or the Isp of the rockets as well, but ultimately the whole thing is a relative process. I'm not sure I like the idea of a universe where the laws of physics change based on your difficulty setting, you know?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

By modifying the payload to be larger and heavier because you need to haul more stuff with you, you necessarily make getting it into orbit harder in that you need to build a larger rocket. Then constrain the design space through various things so that you've got stuff encouraging you to make the rocket smaller (cost being the most obvious one, but there's also the pad weight restrictions and so on). There's how you manage difficulty.

You could also rescale the solar system or the Isp of the rockets as well, but ultimately the whole thing is a relative process. I'm not sure I like the idea of a universe where the laws of physics change based on your difficulty setting, you know?

well then the career right now is perfect (with a bit of parameter tweaking)! not it's not- there are a lot of reasons mentioned before me and gameplay problems still rise after the tech tree is done something needs to change fundamentally - sandbox is not compelling unless you want to do stuff nor dose the game after the tech tree is finished- so instead of rambling about easy and hard let's start thinking about compelling stuff that will make you play for years not just do the tree once and leave- yes we will have different ideas but some stuff will be widely accepted as good

Link to comment
Share on other sites

That's just grind for grind's sake, really. I'm not enthused. The point is you can add difficulty and challenge without making someone have to farm the same boring contract twenty times before they can do something else.

In Career Mode, you can use the rewards sliders to adjust resource gains from contracts. The funds penalties slider is used to control the cost of building upgrades, and thus has a significant bearing on the amount of "grind" required to overcome the limitations imposed by building tiers.

Reducing rewards shouldn't cause "grind" if you're planning and executing missions efficiently and successfully. If you can't perform efficient missions, or if something goes wrong, then some flights might end up costing more to launch than they earn back in rewards. This might then lead to "grind" while recovering from a mistake.

Increasing the cost of building upgrades can lead to some "grind" if the limitations imposed by building tiers become too constraining. A good example is the Launch Pad. Working within the 18t limit of the tier 1 Launch Pad makes for some interesting challenges, but it sets an absolute limit on the size of rockets you can launch. Sooner or later, you'll want to move on from the early game and start launching bigger rockets. Adjusting the cost of building upgrades lets you control the pace at which these barriers are overcome.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In Career Mode, you can use the rewards sliders to adjust resource gains from contracts. The funds penalties slider is used to control the cost of building upgrades, and thus has a significant bearing on the amount of "grind" required to overcome the limitations imposed by building tiers.

Reducing rewards shouldn't cause "grind" if you're planning and executing missions efficiently and successfully. If you can't perform efficient missions, or if something goes wrong, then some flights might end up costing more to launch than they earn back in rewards. This might then lead to "grind" while recovering from a mistake.

Increasing the cost of building upgrades can lead to some "grind" if the limitations imposed by building tiers become too constraining. A good example is the Launch Pad. Working within the 18t limit of the tier 1 Launch Pad makes for some interesting challenges, but it sets an absolute limit on the size of rockets you can launch. Sooner or later, you'll want to move on from the early game and start launching bigger rockets. Adjusting the cost of building upgrades lets you control the pace at which these barriers are overcome.

Reducing rewards or increasing costs are effectively the same thing. The net upshot is that you need to do more missions, of exactly the same kind you've already done, in order to move on to being able to do different missions because you're not able to afford the hard upgrades (pad weight, science tier) that allow them. That's grinding, by definition. If anything, reward reduction-- by reducing the science you get-- is in fact worse for increasing the treadmill than the penalty slider, because that almost entirely impacts funds and only funds if you know what you're about.

I'd like to see mission unlocks tied to what contracts you've completed, and with a lot more structure and purpose behind them, instead of what amounts to space littering. Contracts to build a station or base, with multiple subgoals you could complete in multiple parts, for example. Satellite networks with a theoretical purpose, so you can't just relocate a satellite ten seconds after it arrives on orbit. Antenna range limits so that the higher tier antennas actually have a point. Maybe they could also boost science transmission recovery? Something like that.

Structured, thoughtful gameflow based on what you can do. Not just moving decimal places. That's what I want to see.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think it's about right. Bear in mind launching to orbit is core gameplay stuff, anyone who's been playing for a while probably will find it easy.

With less draggy aerodynamics it's too easy though. Then the balance benefits from either need a system resize or an Isp nerf. I'm partial to a .85x Isp nerf myself, it drops the engines into the general range of what hypergolic fuels can do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't get equating difficulty of reaching orbit with how big a rocket you need. Much of the difficulty is mission planning; how many docking ports, where are they located, how will modules fit together, will the whole vessel land and return? etc

Much of the challenge of designing a lifter (if you know you have enough dV and TWR) is in making it reliable. When joints got partly fixed in 0.23.5? this was a major improvement, as were the introduction of launch clamps in 0.17 or 0.18. Engine gimbals now producing roll is another improvement.

Saying the NASA parts are OP is missing the point: cost is the main constraint in using them. Why, I remember when people were saying the mainsail was OP since it was the most powerful stock engine. It will always be easy for an experienced player to launch 30t to orbit using 3m parts. The exact same rocket may never make it to orbit if flown by a newbie. That alone demonstrates that the difficulty of getting to orbit is more based on the player than the vessel.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Much of the challenge of designing a lifter (if you know you have enough dV and TWR) is in making it reliable. When joints got partly fixed in 0.23.5? this was a major improvement, as were the introduction of launch clamps in 0.17 or 0.18. Engine gimbals now producing roll is another improvement.

More efficient engines also make lifter design easier, because making a small rocket reliable is easier than making a large rocket reliable. As the overall efficiency of the engines is slowly creeping upwards (remember how the LV-T30/45 used to be the best heavy lift engine, because the Mainsail had Isp 280/330 s and the Skipper had 300/350 s with 4 tonnes of mass), designing reliable rockets is becoming easier from patch to patch.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

More efficient engines also make lifter design easier, because making a small rocket reliable is easier than making a large rocket reliable. As the overall efficiency of the engines is slowly creeping upwards (remember how the LV-T30/45 used to be the best heavy lift engine, because the Mainsail had Isp 280/330 s and the Skipper had 300/350 s with 4 tonnes of mass), designing reliable rockets is becoming easier from patch to patch.

Point taken. Hopefully cost can make this a bit more complicated, but it hasn't, yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

People seem to forget how difficult KSP is to start out with.

Only because orbital mechanics is counter-intuitive, not because KSP needs big rockets to get into orbit. In fact tiny rockets suffice to get into orbit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you tell me I have to get to a 5t payload to orbit using minimal resources then that's not an orbital challenge, it's a design challenge. Getting to orbit is neither easier nor harder. It still requires the same minimum TWR and deltaV.
Incorrect, in my experience. A rocket with a nice delta-V margin, plenty of thrust on every stage, and loads of control is relatively easy to fly. You can make a right hashup of the ascent with such a rocket and get away with it. A rocket like that is also quite probably overbuilt, more massive than it needs to be for its payload.

On the other hand when you build a rocket that maybe has a low TWR upper stage, or has very limited control authority, or only has barely enough delta-V to make it, then you need to get your ascent right. And it won't always be the same "right" for different rockets either. Said rocket that isn't wasting mass on oversized engines, unnecessary control parts, or excess fuel also might well have a good payload fraction.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This thread is quite old. Please consider starting a new thread rather than reviving this one.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...