Wjolcz

This game is clearly not finished, even though it has a "released" status. Screw the look of parts and the lack of basic info. They always stated it won't make it's way into the stock. I can mod that. The career though! It was meant to be in the game from almost the beginning and yet it's still crap. All we've been getting so far is a bunch of "tweaks", which frankly didn't do much. Now that the console version is out I can only hope the console players will use their voices and request the much needed change.

I remember seeing someone complaining about tier-0 runway and thought "It can't be that bad". Then tried it once and never used it again.

Also is there really anyone who does the grand voyage contracts? Who cares if you can slingshot from here to there in what order? It would be better to have two, or three different missions with similar objectives set (temperature around Jool, temperature around Eve, temperature around Eeloo) instead of one big thing that doesn't care about transfer windows and picks targets at random.

I agree.

Let us choose bodies of interest and our own objectives. How I see it: You go into Mission Control and pick the body of your choice. Then a bunch of "biomes" (low orbit, high orbit, surface, ocean, highlands, lowlands, etc.) show up. Now, you click on them and every possible experiment/objective available (would probably differ based on what kind of strategy AKA program you have picked in the Admin Building) shows up. Each of them has a fixed reward. Once you've picked the ones that interest you, you click the green tick button and the mission becomes marked as accepted. This part is an extra, so don't treat it as set in stone (or however this idiom is used): This would be best coupled with the strategies (or rather programs) offered by the Admin Building. You would have three types for each body (except for the Sun and Jool since they can't be landed on): Scientific, Commercial, Public Relations. Scientific - the objectives for these missions are purely scientific (science experiments are to be used in these) and they grant you only science points (though I really hate them). Commercial - tourism, ore hauling, landing there only because someone is paying you for it and all that nonsensical jazz you can make money on. These grant you money only. PR - mainly the World's Firsts (probably the easiest ones). They grant you reputation only. Let the discussion begin!

Also why the hell do I have to spend hours in the Mission Control hunting for the missions that interest me instead of designing my own? I don't care about contract "weighting", or whatever it's called. It's still random. And random doesn't equal sandbox, which is what this game was meant to be from the start. Sandbox means picking your own path of progression, not a mix of linear tech tree and random contracts.

I tried to play a stock career with KER and KAC installed and it also felt pretty painful. I just wish there was a properly designed career mode with everything in place from the beginning. All that we have now is a poorly thought out unlock-a-part (by doing a bunch of unrelated things!) mode that is being "tweaked" all the time by moving parts around the tree and adjusting the rewards of still random contracts system. Since SQUAD makes my vessels unlaunchable every time I update the game they could at least take some time and make me want to start the save from the beginning. Right now there's no motivation for me to play it. It just sucks.

Gotta love the "don't like it, mod it" part of the community.

I do not share the same experience. What mods did you use?

I do not understand the point of that part and try to avoid it whenever I can. Like, what even is in there that can't be put into smaller and handier containers? Science should be actual science, not parts that magically generate you research points.

When a flatearther denies it, it goes poof. Also a panda dies in the process.

OK, so I see some confusion about the concept. People keep saying that a career like this would punish the player for doing what the game asks for, but I really don't understand why (someone illuminate me, please). I came to conclusion that the misunderstanding might be coming from the fact I'm not a native English speaker and the way I word things is a bit messy, so I tried to narrow it down a bit by including only the basic concepts and ideas of the proposed system. Here it is: Is everyone OK with this version? I didn't include the reputation-eating time in this case (maybe this could be dealt with by making the rep work the way it works now, but it would probably cause some balancing issues) mainly because I feel like this is the main cause of confusion about this thread. Let me know if I forgot about something cruicial. So,again: if anyone could point out the flaw and why people think creating this would cause the player to become the punished, please do so.

I like how you tried to create a compromise by putting in most of the needs and requests people have been asking for, but that still wouldn't cut it IMO. Let me do the same: The tech tree is unlocked with time and money. Science is actual science that also grants you reputation for gathering it. The amount of reputation influences the monthly budget. The Administration Building gets proper programs that let the player choose the planetary body of interest (kind of like in Strategia mod). IMO the programs should progress in more or less this pattern: Scientific Programs (mostly unmanned probes, rovers, satellites, LKO/sub-orbital tourism, etc.) -> Colonization Programs (bases, stations, interplanetary vessels, tourism, etc.) -> Commercial Exploatation of Space (hauling ore from different places back to Kerbin to sell it, advanced interplanetary tourism, etc.). If a program is selected/active the tab relating to that program shows up in the Mission Control building. The Mission Control gets and actual Mission Planning Tool. Each planet/moon has it's own tab. When clicked on, the tab opens and all the possible scientific/commercial/tourism-related objectives roll out. Once that's out the player should be able to mark the ones he wants to complete around the selected body and accept the mission plan.

All that career does is makes you go somewhere, gather science points (not even actual scietific data) and unlock new parts. In that exact order. But that's not even what is so bad about it. It's the fact that people got used to it and consider it "alright", because a proper overhaul would probably kill their saves. It is the real tragedy of career mode.

I agree. If LS is ever to be added to the stock game it should be as simple as possible: EC consumption per kerbal onboard, supplies (food+water as one) and a greenhouse (to produce the supplies and be paired with ISRU to close the loop).

The last time I remember devs talking about more planets they said having more than we have now would cause a performance hit (or maybe it was the RAM issue) Anyway, I think the stock game should stay around that magical number of 4GB of RAM usage, since it seems to be standard amount for laptops and lower-end machines. So to sum up: yes for more planets, even hough I don't think they are necessary (No Man's Sky seems to have more bodies than KSP, yet it's not considered good, so the amount of them =/= quality). I still haven't visited all of them, even though I consider myself a veteran.

Yeah, I think long-term data gethering would be great to have. Not with the current system though, since it's kinda flawed and broken. It would probably feel punishing and boring to gather the science points over long periods of time. in a system where experiments grant you meaningful rep points though...

There are also a bunch of ways of how to deal with the "peanlties" you are talking about. The discussion and OP there is open to suggestions. I would love to hear yours too. The more people discussing it the better. And by the way, the thread there suggests and discusses something completely different than what you said about tourism. It's just that I'm not native english speaker and my wording might be poor. I agree with this and this. That's a great idea.

Ideally, yes. Well, I think that's the problem with how the scientific experiments are currently handled. What I would love to see is actual scientific data, so if you for example had a surface sample there would be elements, isotopes and stuff like that all in one graph window looking something like this, I guess (I'm no geologist). I tried to accomodate this concept to the current science gathering system, which IMO is bad, but it seems people like it and actual graphs would be a nice thing to have. I guess it's mainly a UI change, since it would unclutter the R&D science report part and would easily give a way to look into the results of past experiments around/on a body, thus enabling the player to not go all hectic when gathering science (like in the fast Moho flyby example).

Nope. I think they should be viewed when hovering over the "spike" bit on the graph. Let me MS Paint it real quick. This is horrible, but hopefully you get the idea:

Exactly. #fixnottweaks

I disagree. They are not good at all. It would be better if they could be filtered like it is in Strategia mod. With each body having it's own tab. EDIT: That would still be too random IMO, but still better than what we have now. I would like to see a proper step-by-step mission planing tool (so Mission Control can actually work as a proper Mission Control, not contracts slot machine). You pick a body and then each experiment/activity is selected also by you. Want to take only 3 tourists to the Mun and back and nowhere else? Want more? Less? It's up to you what you want to do in what order. Seriously. Contracts are nowhere near good. Free will =/= randmoness.

Guess what I voted for? I said it many times and I will say it again: the science-research system is all wrong. I don't need to visit the Mun to build myself a space shuttle. Science should be actual science (also grant rep as a form of reward) and tech should be unlocked with money and time. In this case tweaks are not enough.

I discovered quite the opposite. Though since this forum is meant to be children and teen-friendly: don't drink and fly. On topic: I don't actually lack the ideas and plans. I lack the motivation. The things I would like to do in career are almost countless, yet I always lack the motivation to finish them. Mainly due the fact that career mode is still unfinished and doesn't let me do these things the way I want them. I will make that Laythe polar base one day. With a fully functional SSTO ferry and a space station in orbit. I will do all these great things once the career mode is overhauled and offers the free choices, not random choices.

That's not how it should work though.