Stephen10188

@Stephen10188 You haven't been here for... 4 years. Welcome back. Thanks. I have been reading stuff in the intervening time, I just rarely feel the need to respond. Ive actually been running the game on and off throughout the whole time (I even run a club at our school for the Kids to Play the EDU version). haha

A letter about being ‘Feature Complete’? I recall seeing some time ago that HarvesterR Described the game as being feature complete, and although this caused some level of complaint from the community at the time most of this focused on that fact that the game didn’t yet include all features that a given player would like to see added. The main counter argument was that if squad thinks its feature complete it must be by definition (as they are the Devs). I did not write anything much at the time, as the point seemed moot given that they committed themselves to additional development anyway. However, with the latest updates being mainly languages and a thematic expansion it seems that If we are to challenge the idea that the game is feature complete now is the time to do so. So that’s what I’m doing. The point of this post is to highlight what feature compete means and illustrate that though most of those denying KSP’s status as a feature-complete game are doing so for the wrong reasons, they are never the less correct. Therefore, to do this we must define the term: A Feature is a way that the game works and a component of gameplay that is not content I.e. Not parts, planets, missions etc., but core gameplay functionality. For that reasons thought there is lots of content I would like to see added it is not relevant to this post. The more controversial part of the definition is what do we mean by ’complete’? Obviously the devs have the main say in what complete means to them, but at the same time a game isn’t completed based purely on their say-so. (To illustrate this, imagine a football game without any players implemented, It wouldn’t matter how many times you describe it as complete, if it lacks the key functions to be described as a football game, it simply isn’t true.) For this reason to be feature complete a game must be declared as such by the devs once it has achieved the following 2 things: 1. Contain all key features that one could reasonably expect and describe as essential for a space programme simulator game. 2. Contain all of the features that the devs themselves say it must contain to be feature complete. In its current state KSP doesn’t fully meet either of the above requirements. To be specific it falls short in 3 key areas. I will now describe them: (Note: Though I am aware that some of the below present as ‘challenging’ to resolve from a development point of view, I’m not avoiding prescribing specific solutions out of a lack of ideas, but rather because how I would like to see it solved isn’t necessarily how other’s would suggest a solution and so, again, I’d be describing specific content rather than features if I went into detail here on how I would like a solution to look) Life support The biggest challenge with putting a man on Mars or maintaining functioning space station is not the rocket technology but rather keeping astronauts healthy and sane for that length of time. To simply overlook this issue, in your game, is comparable with overlooking fuel requirements. You’re simply not addressing one of the main problems/issues facing a space programme if you don’t address the need to life support. Thought it’s an added consideration that some players may dislike (Just another thing to worry about) it could be toggle-able and gradable, just like comms requirements, money requirements or science/tech requirements. So leaving it out on the basis that not everyone would enjoy the added challenge is a poor excuse. In this category of missing features, we also previously had re-entry heat issues, and comms issues but these have now been successfully implemented in a considerate and sensible way that allows for scaling and selecting of the associated difficulty. So why not life support? Unless you address the need to maintain, food, water, air and health/sanity you are not a complete space programme simulator/game so cannot be called feature complete any more than you could without rocket engines. 2. Late game structure/balance/direction. At present, there is enough science in the Kerbin system to unlock the full tech tree (its infinite now) so why leave? There is no end goal or specific need to go to any other planets, and the nuclear engine is far enough up the tech tree that you’re pretty much complete game-wise by the time you’re effectively capable of going inter-planetary (at least as a new player). Although, this issue has been mitigated with introduction of missions, they are too random and there is no need to ever prioritise the main story-line missions (the Milestone ones); they can just be ignored. After all what does Bop currently have to offer anyway? There needs to be more emphasis on direction, more late game content to make the pursuit of additional planets/science worthwhile* and some sort of end-goal (Though this need not force an end to your adventures). I say ‘need’ because it is not properly balanced otherwise, you have overcome 80% of the challenge by the time you are 10% of the way through the content. ** Again, there are plenty of solutions out there already but I am not here to request a specific approach, just to point out that in its current format, the difficulty does not scale in a challenging way or provide directional incentive to try ever-harder things, it’s not good game-balancing. And so as a game this feature is in need of devlopment for KSP to be considered ‘feature-complete’. 3. Multiplayer It is a game feature, that you have committed to and so falls under point 2 of the definition. I know that current and previous devs have suggested all kinds of ideas that have not ended up in the game and there has never been a requirement to pursue each any ever one. However 2 things make multiplayer different: It is the only ‘feature’ rather than ‘content’ that falls into this category of being an absent by definition of being short of what the devs describe as their implementation goals. As Devs you’re not committed to any idea until you say ‘We are committed to implementation of…’, which is what happened RE multiplayer. (By definition, if being devs makes you the arbitrators of what must be included to be ‘feature-complete’ and the only people with the power to commit yourselves to anything, then multiplayer must be an absent feature because you have called it as such.) Again I know that there are implementation issues RE time warp and that these are hard to overcome, But modders have managed it by allowing players’ instances to differ from a central timeline that they can then snap back to post-missions so that everyone can get things done at the speed they like but share goals. Whilst this might not be your preferred route, you can come up with one, you’ve done it some many times before on other features and modders have on this one so it is not only possible but there’s clearly a desire for it among the community. Whilst there are many, many other things I would like to see added I know that most of these are ‘content’ and not gameplay ‘features’ and/or not features that fall into the above 2 categories of what the game would need to have to be considered ‘feature-complete’ and so I wont include them here to preserve the integrity of the points I’ve made. Again, this is not me requesting a specific solution or demanding a specific outcome, At any point you could pull the plug and refuse to finish it off. It’s simply me stating definitions and what those definitions logically imply. I Therefore present this information to you in the hope that it will inform your thinking on future development. Appendix * I note that more challenging biomes and more science collection incites to more unlocks which in turn incites to exploring more biomes etc. in a cycle. However, this could be overcome if some of the late game improvements were quality of life/efficiency focused so that they didn’t have to lead on to a whole new set of science (just replay-ability with added convenience instead) ** There is also an issue where, at best, the current directional tools (The missions) are misleading, in the order they send you to the planets. Having played for a long time, I know that Eve is the hardest planet for landing and returning a manned mission, yet it is right next to Kerbin. Whilst this makes sense in the context of their real world analogues, for a player unfamiliar with the difficulties associated with visiting Venus/Eve they are unlikely to go there last despite the fact that such would be advisable from a difficulty-scaling point of view. This is made all the worse by the fact that the current mission order specifically directs you to Eve straight after Duna. I am aware that at 1 point another gas-giant was planned with a collection of end-game moons to assist with this difficulty-scaling issue, and though any specifics of such a thing are clearly content, some sort of better method of signposting objectives based on increasing difficulty is clearly needed from a feature (game balancing) point of view.