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Another point would be that Squad has explicitly stated they don't like "random," so for career or science that massively limits their game design options (remember that when I say ":game design," I'm talking about the gameplay mechanics dropped on top of the "sim" aspect of spaceflight (or craft building). The new resources I think are actually random, however, which is a good sign. Were they not, you'd wiki the best location, then always land there, if you were of a mind to do that (no need to scan or otherwise locate the resources). I'd personally think that both science and career modes would benefit from exactly THIS kind of random with respect to "science." In other words instead of generic "science from orbit," you might need to scan a world a certain amount. Then perhaps most of the "biomes" (terrible word choice by Squad, as almost all are lifeless) could in fact be randomized in some fashion---or made less important. Say instead of X "biomes" on the Mun, each of which gives you 120 science for a sample return, they only give you a small fraction of that amount of science. Then add a new feature, "unique" or "important" geology that can be scanned for, but is random. You'd then locate those regions via photo-mapping (scanning), then land and EVA/collect for the higher points we think of for each "biome" now. Might create some novel situations where you have to land places that you might not otherwise go if you want the big science payoff.

I think he meant something that is settled on the bottom, instead of floating.

Personally, I think the "must haves" are only what Squad says/implies the scope or elements of the game are. I got the game I think at 0.23 or 0.24 (or between?). I started playing as a noob, and assumed, based upon nothing but playing the game, and reading the part descriptions, that reentry was what I would expect it to be, and that aerodynamics should be roughly correct (it's a game, after all, so roughly). The mk1 landercan says in the description that it cannot possibly survive reentry. That it can means that according to nothing but KSP itself, reentry heating is a "must have," and past that, either the mk1 landercan must be incapable of reentry, or the description changed. Same with reasonable aero---from the start I added nosecones, and never built crazy looking rockets, I made rockets that looked as much as possible like rockets. At first I only reentered capsules, for example. I only learned HERE that I was entirely mistaken, and that the game's own internal descriptions were lying. So I basically agree, but I think if the game itself mentions/claims a feature, it MUST be in the game. If it has "skills" they should matter, or not be there. If it has "career," then I need to track someone's career. In general, the play modes should be well thought out, in other words, or just cut them loose, and let the modders have at it (as long as they provide the ability to mod those parts).

Random solar systems was an idea I threw out to make science/exploration more of a goal (you could not check a wiki for the best altitude to aerobrake, you'd have to experiment, yourself, for example). It would also make replay more exciting (like the first time you say Jool in KSP (note that I personally have never looked at any KSP world past what I can see from a craft I have sent there, ever)). Certainly not required, but it seemed like an easy way to get that sense of exploration, certainly in replay. I do think what people call automation (though it would also be astronauts) is actually required for a game to actually be management---not that I want a management game, but that semantics matter at some level, and if you say it's management, then I expect to manage, and most management manages labor. Career is another word that has an implicit meaning. Whose career is it, exactly? What role is the player role-playing? Apparently all of them. Simultaneously. I think it can work without AI, but it requires more thought on the part of the game designers. Again, it's about goals (OP's basic point, IMO). Goals: Sandbox: Have fun by doing whatever you like in the solar system. Works pretty well, nothing to add, really. Science: Have fun by collecting science---and unlocking tech apparently. It does less well at this for a number of reasons we could illuminate, though the goal of fun, For Science!™ seems like a decent goal. I just want it more fun, less grindy. That's subjective, obviously, some might think it's perfect that you need to land on the Mun to unlock a ladder, or you have fly rockets to the other side of Kerbin for the same (even though your staff can apparently get anywhere on the planet to recover you with no effort at all, maybe I should use THAT vehicle to get all the Kerbin science I want?) Career: Have fun by… ? Grinding for funds? Grinding for funds and science? This is the primary question OP is asking, IMO. I think we all understand it to be a way to place limitations on the player to try and create novel challenges that would not come about in sandbox, or science mode. Functionally it is little different than science, really, other than in the very early game funds can break you. That's a primary design flaw right there in career. Career is hardest for players just starting career. By far. Career has a difficulty path that gets easier, rapidly. That to me is a fundamental flaw in game design, and turns career into a sort of easy leveling game. The longest/hardest early game I have had was 6.4X with stock parts in career mode. Getting to orbit was my "boss battle" given limited parts due to funds/vab/pad, no reverts, etc. Once I got a couple tiers of the tech tree unlocked, I was already on the gravy train, and it became like any other career game I have played in KSP. Late game I don't even notice it is not stock, frankly. I can build anything I like. Heck, if I ever used the "Strategies" building at all (I never use or upgrade it) my biggest challenge would be to spend funds faster. Tw1 says it well: But apparently, all space programs do is put stuff up in space for other people, and collect rocks.

Wow, you are not only capable of mind-reading, but also accessing the percentage right people are on a topic. Amazing. You are truly a unique person on earth. You're also aware that people arguing for gameplay choices are subjective, imagine that. I'll admit that my opinions are subjective---unlike yours, which are apparently 100% objective… wait, I'm starting to get a psychic ability like you have… your opinions are only 96.3% objective and 3.7% subjective… amazing! Patchwork means that good game design features are effectively random. OP's point (which I agree with 100%), is that the devs have didn't make a decision what the gameplay modes are supposed to be like, they in fact gave them a name, then sort of added features they thought created that mode---when good gameplay design would have the GAME aspects more thought out around the arc of play they imagine. I could not like there game modes they picked, and still see that the design was sound, for example. Science/career in KSP seem cobbled together to me, not well planned. If you disaree with OP, you are saying that they were in fact well planned I think. Not me, so I agree---but I'm only 50% rational/objective, apparently, so that's meaningless, right? I've said the same many times before, and I in fact plan on buying it again, just because I feel almost guilty about how little I paid… perhaps it's my inherent irrationality. In this thread we have mostly been discussing gameplay aspects, not the false dichotomy of simulation vs game. Some (you?) apparently think the gameplay is just awesome, and Squad randomly fell across the best "career" gameplay ideas ever, while others think that they'd have done better to really think out gameplay modes ahead of time, and design to whatever goal they have instead of tacking stuff on after the fact. I think career mode is a great idea, I just think it is badly done. I could envision several modes (I suggested ONE above) that could work for career, even some within the broken framework we have now. Gameplay is always going to be subjective, and some of it is beyond the players really knowing consciously (psychological aspects of reward systems, etc).

An interesting idea for reentry... What if there was a way to test reentry for a given craft, or part of a craft (controllable). You'd place it in a suborbital trajectory, and click the "run test" button that would then appear. Reenter successfully (everything on the craft survives). Have the game remember the parameters to give a known envelope for successful reentry (say velocity upon hitting the atmosphere, with a requirement that once it enters the atmosphere, it must not leave or the test is invalidated). You'd then do tests perhaps like the recent Orion flight. Then, later, you can simply place a capsule on a suborbital trajectory that is within what you have tested, and walk away, and it will do the rest for you.

Minecraft is a great example. I can't stand creative (which my kids play), but survival mode ("career" in ksp) is lousy... None the less that's what I play if I play. A more compelling campaign game would be pretty cool, but the base mechanics don't suit it well, really (any game that needs "boss" characters is bad design, IMO). I whine about career in ksp because I think it has so much unrealized potential... Unrealized because of poor choices. To me, KSP should be a "space race" game in career mode. That would require meaningful time, and an AI (or lifted from other players' games) crafts. The AI would need to be playing an abstracted version using player accomplishments as possible drivers... They don't have ideal parts, but you are clearly near a munar mission, so they launch anyway. Rep would be who was winning the race. That's what a "vision" of career mode might look like, though others are possible.

I'm saying career mode sucks, because I know what a good "career" game feels like. I'd likely not even know the names of any of the EA games you could mention, BTW. I know how a good game works, period, even if it's an RPG (a real RPG), or a board game (hex board in case you were born not that long ago and don't know). So comparing me to "EA" has exactly zero meaning for me. None, I entirely miss the point. I am comparing KSP to nothing at all. Career as a word has it's own implication, in a complete vacuum. It could possibly mean the career of a single astronaut, which it self-evidently doesn't in the case of KSP. That pretty much leaves the director of the program as the only possible career to be modeled. You can say it's something else, but then "career" is the wrong description of it. That they explicitly added features, and have in fact said that it is supposed to be "tycoon like" demonstrates EXACTLY what they are getting at. It fails utterly at all those. Not the career of an astronaut. Check. Not the career of a program director/manager. Check. What is left? Read OP's post. What is KSP trying to be? Sandbox? That's a given, sandbox is easy, and it's fine in KSP, they need add little for that, anything added is gravy. Science? Point grinding added to sandbox. Science makes no sense, tech tree relationship to science makes no sense, science does nothing useful. What is Science mode trying to be? Apparently Sandbox with point grinding. Career? Again, it's not a management game, not even a little, because the player doesn't manage anything at all. He has to do everything himself, and has to grind funds to pay for it. That doesn't make it career, and more importantly it doesn't make it FUN. EDIT: EA games I have played… MULE and Bard's Tale (on a roommate's C-64, I think---or was it an Atari). That's it. I was aware of Wing Commander, but I always thought space fighters were idiotic, so I never played it. Reading their titles on wiki, I don't think any of the others would have interested me, and most game companies make pretty lousy games, frankly. The last game I really got into (Silent Hunter 4) was only good heavily modded because of how a-historical it was, and even those mods could not fix fundamental flaws in the game (which SH5 didn't even touch, electing to instead add eye-candy and useless content instead of fixing base mechanics---go figure).

This was SO close. I wanted it to land, but I'm sort of glad since I told a bunch of friends that the day it lands, party at my house, and it was a school and work night. June 19th is a Friday, so even with a scrub and a 2d chance, I can have a better party if they nail it.

I'm being EA? I'm being nothing at all. Squad has added 2 modes of play that are not well thought out. If they add a mode of play, why should it be slapped on as an afterthought? Wouldn;t it be better to make sandbox better, than to waste time on "career mode," if that mode is cruddy? They've done a lot of fundamental game changes around "Career," and they claim it is really the ultimate aim of the game. Fine. Squad's goal is a "career" game where the player manages a space program (and flies every single second of every flight manually, apparently). I think it's not well thought out. Even within the paradigm of a "management" game where you manage nothing except for yourself, it is broken. The funding is disconnected from time, the expense is disconnected from time, 3d parties are paying the player for basic science missions, you have almost no internal missions available (only the Explore type), science is only used to unlock tech, it is not useful (because collecting random mun rocks helps you invent solar panels?) OP's point is that the game should pick a design goal for whatever mode first, then design a game that makes sense (and is fun) around that goal. I'd add that reply should be considered (hence my wanting Kerbol system random seeds).

Vid up!

This is sometimes called the "Gell-Mann effect." The story is he was being interviewed by a substantial newspaper about whatever current work in physics he was up to, and then read the article. The reporter managed to get the gist basically 180 degrees from reality. He said he turned the page to the next section, and believed everything he read there. Reporters are not terribly smart. Reporters who actually have a background in a field they report on… would not be reporting on it if they were good enough to actually have a job in that field.

Then stop reading dev posts, that is Squad's vision of career, not mine. I don't care about "tycoon" games specifically, but to the extent career is about a space program, and NOT about single, isolated flights, it REQUIRES some sort of AI. I should be able to set a capsule on a suborbital trajectory and/or tell it to reenter, and not have to micromanage that choice. I should be able to have the fun of piloting back a booster stage (falcon9 style) while my fully capable 2d stage is piloted to orbit by Jeb, or whichever astronaut I assign. I should be able to set up cool EVA missions (like a munar scientific survey) and have the landing crew walk around doing them if I like (or drive a rover, or walk an astronaut several km from the lander, and be able to tell it to head back without me having to do it). Nothing stopping a player from CHOOSING fun piloting activities, but the ability to do 2 things at once (like if 2 SoI encounters happen at the same time for some reason). On topic, I would love the ability to have maneuver nodes have a toggle to complete them automatically by stealing a "background focus" when needed (maybe dropping time warp to 1:1 if required). Early in the career game, it's not an issue, but I do not time warp gratuitously. I extra planetary probes early in the game as soon as I can (Eve, Duna, Jool). It takes a long time for them to arrive, and I go about my Kerbin SoI business (note I'm usually playing an RSS cfg of the Kerbol system, so it might take 10 years to get to Jool). By the time I'm getting near SoIs, I have stations, mun bases, craft in assembly in orbit for Duna (with life support). I have to do everything by hand. I have missed SoIs before (yeah, I should add KAC, but I haven't yet), or maneuver nodes. I have to resupply stations, etc. Many flights in space at once. If I'm the director of KSC, I am apparently hovering being everyone at their computers saying… "click that thing there!" They must hate me.

Not at all, "automated" would be a probe (which should also be a thing). We have astronauts, they are supposed to have various skill levels, and career is supposed to be a "tycoon" like game. In a railroad tycoon game, is the player required to use a rail yard engine to move all the rolling stock to various trains, then drive the trains (serially) across the country themselves? Didn't think so. If you play Empire: Total War, must you load each musket yourself? If it was KSP you would. Hard to get a company of troops to fire a couple shots a minute if you had to even just click "reload" on each guy, much less the KSP equiv, which would be doing it as a sort of maneuver. KSP has zero aspect of managing a space program if the player is forced to do every, single action in the game personally. I've never used MJ, myself, but I'd be happy in the later game to have my cadre of astronauts do resupply missions to my orbital station, or transfer crews from Munbase, or whatever, while I do whatever it is I feel like doing at the moment. "Managing a space program" and "no AI" are in fact mutually exclusive ideas. I'm fine with dumping career, maybe we'd get better stuff if they didn't bother wasting resources on "career" mode.

How about piloted? By our pilot astronauts.

I can't remember ever using any aircraft parts aside from once using the landing gear for a rover.

WHy not make a copy of it for xenon? Or a stock version of real fuels (pick Mixed, LFO, mono, or xenon for anything).

Reddit. It'll be cool if they release the video. Another thing on reedit says, "Video from one of the NASA Management Rooms shows an empty Autonomous Spaceport Drone Ship. #SpX6"

That's very helpful for habitats on the Mun.

Gotta love that one quote I just read from spacex, "we falcon punched the barge."

Others have posted this, but the various non-cockpit parts should have 2 IVAs, one vertical, one horizontal.

I only suggested skills because they are stock, and largely useless right now aside from pilots and SAS.

Given that "supplies" are really all consumables (air, water, and food), The idea of cannibalizing a ship for parts or possible LS is sort of interesting. Imagine a stranded base, and the kerbals could stretch LS based upon skill (engineers and scientists might do better) until rescue as another option. NOte that they'd be stretching it at the expense of the craft working as rover dude suggests... I'm interested in ways for kerbal skill to matter since AI kerbals are not a thing. I'd like to see this mechanic as an option even should we chose death as the result of no LS. They could: Drain fuel/oxidizer tanks, make a science lab or experiments no longer work (taking parts to make equipment to extract useful LS from other parts). Wreck engines for parts. Ideally, it would be in a hierarchy that makes sense. Science stuff would be the first to go, particularly any mobile processing labs as that part seems an excellent choice for stuff that might be used. Then perhaps draining some tanks for chemicals that could be turned into water or O2. It shouldn't buy much time, though. Rescue within Kerbin SoI, maybe...

Actually, random would be plenty fun, but squad doesn't like it, sadly