tater

Yeah, I think "difficulty" and challenge are the most often misunderstood things in gaming. There are those (who are utterly wrong) who think that "realism" = difficulty/challenge. There are those that think that awards on contracts might adjust difficulty… they really don't. I'm not even looking for difficulty, I want each campaign to be novel, and chance is very much part of that. A great example from another game, Silent Hunter 4. The campaign game (stock) was abysmal. Not "meh," abysmal, worthless, you get the idea. I made a new campaign that was supposed to be realistic within the engine limits, but not perfectly historical. Another modder (we collaborated on both mods, he helped a lot with mine, I helped add some units to his, etc) did a historical mod. If there was a japanese task force 200 nm NW of Guam on April 2d, 1943, you can go there in his campaign, and there they are. This is very cool, but it also means that if you do another campaign and happen to be in that area at the same date, it will be identical. My take was to have the right balance of units, and have them going from a sensible place to another sensible place, but it was random. Other than major naval engagements, I didn't script historical movements. Realistic feel, but not perfectly historical. That's an ideal KSP campaign model for me. What could be done? Here's an idea for a sort of non-multiplayer multiplayer: A campaign can be set to "borrow" from other players (there would have to be a check for mod compatibility, else it only works with stock). We already get stranded kerbal missions, but where do they come from? This is where they come from. Add another spaceport someplace, and that is the competition's launch facility. Every so often (random) your game sill borrow craft files from other players, and add them to the competition's hanger of stuff. If there was a way to record a mission (like tracks in some games (Il-2, for example)), the track of a launch can be downloaded to your game. Some make it to orbit, some fail, some guys get stranded (maybe in their spacecraft, or even nearby one (EVA gone wrong)). You might find a station that you do not own up there. How/if you can interact with it might be part of the campaign ("New international space treaty signed, contract to take astronauts to Kerbinov Station now available."). It provides as context for rescues. Then there is competition. Another player orbits the Mun. You might get a contract that pays out if you beat them to a landing, but less (or nothing) for a 2d place. This is obviously complex, but it is a way of populating people's games with stuff they didn't make, and a sense of competition that might make replay more interesting.

I agree with most of the above stuff. As I pointed out in my very first post here (Late August, after like a weeks play), the science/tech system is seriously broken, IMO. I've been considering modding (new learning curve there) just to fix it as I think it's more than an alternate tree, or better contracts. The "science" gathered in game is mostly planetary science (which would really have about zero impact of technological development, frankly), with some space medicine, and some spaceflight engineering in tot the mix (the latter 2 mostly from contracts, or simply abstracted as "planting a flag" on more and more distant bodies (longer duration flight, novel techniques required (Duna, Eve, etc)). Science as a goal (abstract knowledge) is fine, I honestly think for players it's seeing cool places. Dolling up the planetary surfaces will help this a lot. I think about Minecraft. My kids play a lot, and I mess with it sometimes. I'm constantly amazed that they will show me a cool seed, and I actually want to push them, away from the computer, and explore a little, even though gameplay is effective unchanged, and it's all made with blocks… Landing and having some reason to want to poke around and just marvel at how cool it is is a powerful force in KSP. End goals? Again, I am fine with open-ended, but I want in-game REASONS to do things. Yes, I can build a base if I like, yes I can build a station. There is not really a reason to do so in game. I want a reason. I like the idea of resources---in space---because they provide another reason to do something (which you can ignore if you like). I like the idea of construction, and more permanent facilities on the Mun, Duna, etc. Not landing things that I have to make Rube Goldberg machines to hook together (for no reason, since Kerbals would be happy forever standing on the surface in their suits). I want the ability to eventually tunnel (nuclear tunneler messed with at Los Alamos ages ago (had a lecture by the guy who worked on it), or to land habitat modules (lightweight), the bury them with regolith (shielding). I want a reason to do this though, perhaps extracting Hydrogen or Oxygen for use in life support or as fuel. I dunno, more options. Some are not interested, but I'd like to have some automation, both real "robots" and kerbal pilots. For example, different probe cores capable of different autonomous actions, you start with remote control, then get some simple robots (a lander than can descend based on radar altimeter data, for example (thinking stuff that is really obligatory for something like RT to actually be realistic). Fleshes out the tech tree some, as for distant planets you'd need automation given large time delays for remote control. Kerbal pilots? Yeah. What's the point of tracking their abilities when they don't use them. The player can always chose to fly every mission 100%, but it would be nice to have some routine stuff done by your astronauts at some point (launch parts for a station or ship assembled in orbit, for example). Even stuff like you send a CM home, get involved in something else, forgetting it, and the pilot could at least reenter and deploy the chutes (I lost a ship not realizing that I could not have 2 ships reenter at the same time (docked to bring a ship home from the Mun, then separated for each to reenter and land… ooops).

I've not done a quicksave yet. I figure if I get the lads in trouble, I need to rescue them.

I played a couple of the tutorials, and messed with a couple of the scenarios (one of which was profoundly ugly… I turned the space station into… did you see Gravity?). Never played orbiter, the last time I did orbital mechanics it was on paper (with my HP calculator) in my Lunar Bases class a rather long time ago (geology segment taught by (Harrison) Jack Schmidt).

I am a new player (EDIT: been playing a little over 6 weeks now). I played part of 1 science career, one unmoved career, and one career with FAR/DRE/Ispfix, etc. I never came close to running out, right out of the gate. Funds is not a thing in career in my total noob experience. In my first career, my first rocket was suborbital, 2d was orbital, third was a Mun orbiter (didn't think I could land and return, so didn't try. 4th was a Mun lander. Rolling in funds at that point.

Given difficulty sliders, the default would be to have X-tech failures off. As for the failure, yeah, that's a problem. Include backups, or suffer the consequences, even if the backup is an extra chute, and you have to send a rescue mission.

I still thank that a "default" game experience should be fully functional. If a career has funds, but you never run out… not functional. Have to see what the new stuff will bring.

My experience is that is is not really any different than sandbox as it stands. The only missions that "matter" are rescue missions (still optional). I'd honestly prefer some that are not optional in one way or another. Even if it's just required for funding. As it stands money is infinite, and I might as well just do sandbox. No reason to make a station, no reason to build a base, etc. Again, all career is "optional" as there is "science" mode, as well as sandbox. I'd like to see career really differentiated. That's actually a reason I'd like to see equipment failures---as a possibility on "experimental" tech (tech you get to use for a while for contracts, but not fully unlocked). If you got new tech to do your first Mun landing (in a game where such a contract would provide temporary unlocked items), and you had some failure, you might have an Apollo 13 moment, and have to really think to make it right (or launch a rescue). This kind of thing is exciting to me.

I installed FAR, and I hardly noticed any difference. If I had not specifically done a few launches/reentries (I added DRE, too) trying to see what it took to fail, I'm pretty sure I'd be unable to tell you the difference between the 2 installs if the FAR tab was not there 99% of the time.

I mostly agree, but career doesn't really give me any limitations, the only missions are plant flag or get science from body X, or part tests. I'd much prefer seeing some contracts to build a refueling station in orbit around X, or a base on Y… anything novel. The trick is they need to be more required. I've yet to have any limitations on funds at all, and hence it's functionally no different than sandbox, and since we have sandbox, I want career to have more hurdles… if that makes sense.

I tend to agree with you most of the time, but I think this is entirely the result of bad game design. "Game" being the "career" game. A properly done career mode should have fun replay as a goal. I'd agree that the current paradigm is sort of mind numbing. I'd not con sider myself a vet, but I can finish a tech tree in short order after 1 unmodded, and 1 modded career. I like the idea of a career mode that creates novel missions to complete. The trouble is the novel missions in KSP are absurd (test a giant engine cluster landed on Minmus or something). I'm not sure I can come up with a really good idea for what they should do, but the current career is not it, IMO.

Imagine the flip I suggest... New career, and you have nothing. No tech at all. similar to a current start, you have a contract available to launch a rocket. When you take it, you might get some tech automatically, and some budget to spend, we can call what are now "science" points, "tech" points for clarity. You might be given another few goals (really aimed at training new players) in contracts, some of which might give a few tech points. Tech points might be offered upon acceptance of a contract, but could also be given as a reward for completion… An orbital flight gives data about living in space, which gives tech points... Science data points can change the types of missions you are offered, which indirectly adds to your tech (take Jool mission because your unmanned probe worked, get tech points to spend).

Science vs tech is kind of ridiculous, IMO, and in fact backwards. The technology of spaceflight has not increased due to planetary science missions, but often the technology has improved in order to DO planetary science. You should commit to a mission, say landing on Duna, then accepting that mission opens up new tech appropriate for that mission (by giving you points to spend on tech that is in a better laid out tree). If you fail, you take reputation/funding hits, and perhaps get offered less challenging contracts with fewer points to buy tech with. The cart is before the horse science wise in KSP.

I like lumping all life support into one factor (snacks, in this case), but I'd prefer to have the result of running out be fatal. Not that I like dead kerbals, but I had a mishap (walked away from a loooong burn by a nerva) that resulted in a ship in an excessive orbit around kerbol, and they are never getting rescued. I'd rather take one reputation hit, and be done with them. As it is, I guess i have to terminate the flight from the tracking station. Anyway, it would be nice as an option.

Why bother returning the lander at all? Have Jeb take the science with him, EVA to the reduce ship, and head home. Or am I missing something?

Writing a program is fine, but real landers have altitude information, it's not all time-based. Needlessly harder, is not "realistic." Yeah, doing it manually makes more sense (no delay).

A minimal RO install alone is 64 points, lol.

People who don't care wouldn't know if it was right as it is. How would they? Having the math right doesn't make it harder, it just makes the math right.

Why would anyone care? You can always make a clean install, and only update that one to 0.25, and keep a copy of your 0.24.2 if you are really attached to it for some reason, right?

I paid the $27 without even thinking about it, and in about a month of play, I feel like I've gotten at least that much enjoyment from it (in just a few weeks). Having already paid, I'd happily part with more for an add-on at some point as well. The devs nixed their own version of resources, but I honestly think that would be perfect for an add-on game (requires base KSP) that goes from "exploration" to "exploitation" of space. I'd pay for that, too.

Games frequently end up in situations where "realism" to the letter in one respect destroys realistic outcomes. This sounds like one of those times to me. Signal delay is realistic, but without the appropriate systems to allow some autonomy, it makes realistic probes impossible as landings are not remotely controlled with insane delays, the orbiters are designed (as said above) to measure altitude, and land by themselves.

There has been discussion about RSS/RO in this thread numerous times (I read all of it), and there had been a file available for download by one of the frequent commentators about RO in his sig, but the file has a modification date that is several months old (pre 0.24 even, I think?) so I did not DL it. BTW, I might have asked in the RO thread, but the page 1 read me explicitly puts this mod in a group that will receive mocking should I have asked in that thread, so clearly off-limits there. I figured someone who uses this excellent mod might do so with RSS (they had in the past, clearly), and maybe one might help me, and where else could I ask?

The parts are there when I tried this in my RSS/RO install, but the craft files don't survive the RO rescaling, I think. All the parts are there, but no longer attached to each other. Is there a trick to getting it to play nice with RSS/RO? This is very cool.

I think the real complaints were more about hype than features. We also need to recall that good players would never see it… that statement alone should have defused hype about it. The rest looks pretty awesome. I have yet to crash into anything without things being destructible. I've never checked for stages falling, however… People might need to start a slight turn early to be on the safe side, even in stock.

Awesome. I only tested the Dragon V2 so far (Stock) (Kerbol system, with FAR/DRE/etc). The craft file has the ship rotated from the KSP norm by 90 degrees. As it's sort of hard to tell which way is which on the capsule, I found my first launch confusing Once I figured it out it was fine (I rotated it 90 in the VAB just so I didn't have to think about direction, or do a roll immediately).