Kegereneku

[Citation needed] You don't need to forget that... KSP is a simplified rocket-punk video-game that merely simulate the fun aspect/fantasy of space exploration regardless of what the real world go for. Because we don't actually need scientist up there for much more than : - testing pressurized space-can habitat for monkey - overcoming our lack of dexterous robot for handy work (search for Robonaut 2) Cutting remark aside, you could easily complement my suggestion above with "scientist kerbonaut" incapable of piloting but needed for research. I actually simplified my proposition to make it's fundamental stand out.

Ah yes right, and your answer to that was to suggest a system that made it impossible to multitask, or more exactly a frustrating nightmare to even think about playing non-linearly and sequentially. But, let's not slide off-topic... I would advance that it is because you just dismissed the example we give you as "simple", "wait for bacon" and argues against what others should consider boring. There's not much to add since as demonstrated before time-based mechanic are (1) already present, (2) inevitable, (3) a positive evolution. And anyway, you are arguing against yourself. You don't want "simple clic" gameplay but refuse anything that may remotely look frantic. You don't want something "boring" but argue against interesting time-based problems. I just wish you stopped acting like you understood any...everything about gameplay.

Regex, the very act of producing a limited quantity of energy for a given time is in itself a time-based mechanic. Reaction well use it by default, this is NOT NEGOTIABLE. The first 2 "ways" of power management ALSO justify the same point by themselves, not just the third you know. Note that this "life support" idea you are so keen to bring out is also a simple time/duration-based mechanic, albeit a stressful one since it have a negative feedback (and a non-forgiving failure). Stop right there See : Timewarping through an experiment that "puzzle" around time (as in, is more complex that what Regex believe) allow you to automatically fly "boring" task while feeling the satisfaction of solving a puzzle. There's absolutely NO REASON to penalize "timewarping" as it is : 1) an acceptable and necessary break from reality. 2) a perfectly interesting gameplay mechanism as it allow the very game of KSP. It is however crucial to make the most of it with the gameplay. If I remember right, you had a hard time accepting that people like to Multi-task through multiple flight, and so, could want a gameplay that allow or even encourage it. Since not everybody build one ship for one mission and one use only, requiring to deal with launch-windows (another already imposed time-based mechanic) and time/power-based experiment can be part of fun. Actually it's the complete opposite. I repeat myself : "WAITING" as in : being able to timewarp efficiently through a set of experiments you had fun setting up. IS BETTER than being forced to repeat menial boring task in real-time. If you were a Veteran replaying for the 3rd time, would you prefer to have fun optimizing the few timed-experiment in new way. Or would you be forced to redo -like an automaton- task that give you no possibility to improve ? (because they refuse to take time into account) Actually there's some rare case of "grinding" that people are perfectly okay with. I just wanted to avoid oversimplification. Anyway, yes, current science is grindy as hell and this is bad. But so would be to never do more/better than instantaneous experiment.

A suggestion : In short : - No new module, it use the space lab - Use up a new resource (raw data?) that is carried in capsule or more in the hitchhikers module How it would work : - First you need the space lab - Then with a capsule you transfer the new-resource. - Last you "do science" and use up the new resource to generate science (limited like experiment) How the game would balance it : - It would act like experiment with biome and a science pool, so you can't produce infinite quantity of science. - At first you can't launch hitchhikers modules so you wouldn't be able to produce a lot of science - As ultimately all this "science resource" come from Kerbin, you would need regular launch. basically its an experiment-module that require "resource" from Kerbun.

I support this suggestion, as it could also solve the problem of too abrupt braking. Though you would have to make a distinction between : - Hard braking, when you must absolutely stop. - Regenerative braking, when you would like to retrieve some energy. ps : do we bet someone will try to make a perpetual motion machine of the third kind ?

Regex, I always end-up disagreeing with you but you made a good point. Yes, the need for satellite could be solved using "situational" (orbital parameter) as required conditions for an experimentation (or a relay satellite) ...but as usual you lack foresight and dismiss other's idea before thinking them out. Energy Management for example through battery and power source is something that can only be reached using "time-based mechanic". And can happen in several way. 1) the easy one : do you produce enough power to steer/propels/light without constant monitoring. 2) the slightly complex : do you have enough stored energy for a "burst" experiment or several. 3) the hard one : do you have enough battery and source to power an experiment through a night/day cycle. This alone justify by itself "time-based experiment". Contrary to what you think, player aren't bored of waiting for good reason. even less thank to Time-warp. What players fear is to be forced to do repetitive task when it could be avoided by simply waiting for it to be made through a "rewarding time delayed experiment" or something. The possibility are infinite. Now, it will get harder depending of how the game deal with budget. A Fact : People only like to "grind" for point doing something NEW. An opinion : System with a recursive Feedback (bet it positive or negative) that allow them to reach ridiculous wealth or bankrupt in no time, would doom any budget-gameplay. A suggestion : Making budget non-cumulative and fixed, something that would augment through... say "reputation" or prestige. In many case, time-based mechanic are extremely important. Ask yourself : Would you even bother if you could launch a rocket instantaneously as long as you fast-punch all needed key like a predetermined fate ?

The problem with Time-based anything suggestion here, is that it's easy to dismiss the concept for bad reasons. Time based experiment for example, look bad/worthless because timewarp exist, but you have to look at the full picture. For starter everything is time based already. You are timewarping while your probes go to Eeloo right ? And doing that give you "Science" Faster than if you didn't right ? So as you see time-warp AND time-based game mechanic don't negate each other. Example of why a probes could profit from "time-based experiment" : - Justifying satellites. As of now, you don't actually need to orbit things, so you don't need an artificial satellites. Just a probes passing close to a planet. In this case, it doesn't matter if anybody will "warp" through the waiting time, what's important is that such a mechanism asked the player to design a satellite, not a flyby probes. I could say a lot more on this subject, but just don't dismiss time-based mechanism too fast

don't take it that bad, I'm not defending the Orion-drive either. I'm just putting into perspective that the technology used by Kerbals is tailor-made for a video-game, quite inspired from reality yes, but actually Nerfed ! Since the Kerbol system of KSP is 1/10th as big as our solar system. I did read what you were answering to. If you want me to be more elaborative in my remark : Many type of propulsion have been considered and are being developed, some crazier than other (from magnetized-tether to actual magnetic accelerator), making our own engine is certainly too difficult to program but KSP's physic could be surprising. Anyway I didn't meant much when I answered. I just tend to be harsh. Edit : By the way. Out of all "possible" engine, we also considered pellet for nuclear fusion ignited through laser http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/enginelist.php#icfusion We even have pulsejet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsejet

The devs said something about creating a "mission system" and since they'll be focusing on career-mode it should come along. The question of money is hard to solve. Unlike what some would like it's hard to make money out of the void, it's not a gold rush. Nowadays most if not all of the money made for launch-service come from satellites-contract or government-funded scientific mission (+ a few military spy-sat). And the problem is that KSP will certainly not limit itself to launching "dumb communication sat" over and over, even less the full constellation of 24 satellites for Geolocalisation. So we have to make "Science" pay for itself, up to the furthest planet. And there's only a few criteria I can be sure of. - The most important is that player want to launch things for themselves, without needing to apply for a mission or do things linearly. - Money mustn't be too easy to win or it make the system worthless. - Yet you must stay able to "get back" from a low period even if most of the interesting things left to do are hard to achieve. - An lastly many players don't like grinding much (do repetitive task to replenish money). Lately the developers pushed back a "resources system" because finally it wasn't actually fun to play.

I'm not against a late-tech engine like the Orion drive because it's overpowered, but I don't think it would even work that well if we made a real one. Let alone it being that practical between the very open nuclear cycle and the hyper kinetic debris generated by the material of each bomb plus shaped bomb which have to resist well enough to redirect the energy in the right direction. Seriously, it may sound cool and indeed Kerbal but in comparison a closed-cycle nuclear fission thermal engine (what is the LV-N engine) is both efficient and safe. Up until now Kerbal used fictional-technology in a fictional-solar-system to do fictional-10years-manned-mission, so I think we can cut some slack to a large and balanced nuclear engine. It's not like anybody proposed a FTL drive.

Bigger question is : can KSP deal with non-spherical gravity source. I doubt it or we would have less thread about the N-body-problem.

Don't mind, I don't want to launch a debate about "budget" here and I just remarked that you deliberately choose to use a very-severe "reputation loss" (for not doing anything) in your argument against my suggestion, and your argument depended heavily on it with no though given to alternatives (ex : not loosing reputation for doing nothing but warp). None of us know if it can work or cannot work, but I have found no fundamental problem with it (like say a recursive loop giving infinite money). But again, this isn't the place to make an actual suggestion about it. It's exactly this.

There's one big problem with OP's first suggestion : KSC have to show you how much science-point you have and is showing you how much you gained. If you continuously gain 0.01 it will require a change so you aren't overwhelmed by science report. On the other hand it can be solved easily : - When you launch the experiment a timer goes on, the game take note - You can return to KSC and do whatever you want, the game keep track of the ongoing experiment - A few day, week, month, year later the experiment is considered finished and you gain all the science. That way you HAD to put the thing in orbit, you weren't obligated to stay focused on it and you got science. Plus I'm already imagining player making them into satellite and retrieving/cleaning the science in EVA so they don't hire one Kerbal for each experiment.

Suggestion : Rather than save Crew selection with the ship, why not save it only as we hit "Launch" ? I say that because if you aborted a launch and decide to launch the same Kerbal another way, the game would need some filter/rules to avoid duplicating Kerbonaut.

I think I remember hearing something about a command that allowed you to re-orient the Navball (and thus the RCS). Never used it myself but if it exist you should find it on the Wiki.

I attached Jebediah to a Booster, does that count ?

Long ago the devs said something about training them to pilot. So their ability could be things like "prepare a rendezvous" or "docking the ship", or more basically "Burn through that maneuver node" (which they would do with mechjeb's precision) More crazy and supposing it's even possible, we could have them drive rover for us over long distance (while we do experiment or else), to bad it certainly wouldn't be possible to do without player-focus.

Not going to derail the topic (again) AngelLestat, but I totally disagree with you. If you compare with the usual alternatives and don't use such a severe reputation-loss to make your points you should find out that it globally preserve freedom while allowing multitasking. Anyway, since the "over time" problem is linked to science and possibly budget and the Devs are working more on Career-mode, it should get addressed soon. No that really not the only issue discussed here. The problem is that for now time is ridiculously cheap. Even science happen instantaneously which is kind of immersion breaking. I would be interesting to know what the devs have in mind.

Yes, some standardization wouldn't hurt. Preferably inspired by the International System and avoiding what NASA did (stay with imperial). Usually we put everything related on the same order of magnitude and make good use of prefix. It's not adapted to everything but it's easier than using Decimal Time Edit : Keep it accessible to common player yes. At least to not give the false idea that KSP is "that real".

I must insist, a fixed-budget replenished each month could be a very elegant solution. What we want to avoid is to grind for money or to have so much money it make budget meaningless. The fixed-budget ideas take care of maintaining a minimal budget without keeping mission from increasing it. The budget can be increased from time to time to match the increase in difficulty and parts cost. More importantly it allow you to keep trying without being penalized for failure (as even reverting to VAB can be felt as a penalty). Furthermore, it give a simple way for the player to trade "time" for any launch he deem necessary (be it a refueling station or a tug-ship), something that may not be possible if your budget only depended of mission or science return. Lastly, a Reputation system used in conjunction with missions may be more than enough to avoid potential abuse. It's simple, consistent and maybe balanced. So if this isn't at least little "elegant" I don't know what could be. I didn't knew about that but sort of. The discussion have mostly been about using time as a direct gameplay mechanism. A little like production time in RTS-game but adapted so Timwarping actually have a visible & balanced impact on the game. Knowing the game as it is now have a time-limit is indeed very important.

I think he meant to make EVA less efficient until you've done research. A balance suggestion I wouldn't be against. I'm thinking about making a pictured suggestion for Parts-upgrade By the way, put aside the difficulty of rope mechanic in a game I found the movie GRAVITY to be more than Kerbal enough.

A fixed per-month budget would shape the game more than you think. - For starter you cannot create a ship too big or too complex at once. Leading you to do careful choices. - The Mun may still keep orbiting Kerbun next month but the place you intended to land on may not be in the sunlight anymore. - It give you a predictable metric to plan big mission. If you tell someone "You've got 1 Millions budget per month" and he is on an ambitious mission asking for several spaceship he could roughly plan 3 smalls probes launch, a tanker launch and lastly the departure of his manned ship along the 3 month he have before the best launch windows. And before someone tell me that "You can just timewarp forever to get back at zero" remember that waiting is a perfectly acceptable penalty in video game as long as the player was given the mean to avoid it. In game were you can multitask you quickly learn to prioritize in advance as part of the game experience.

-Money/Economy -Resources (ISRU refuelling) -Better Aerodynamics -Better IVA's -Better Performance

You know I can't see why science couldn't be a goal in itself. A more evolved science-system that now obviously, we're like in the Alpha of Career mode. As it is now, science offer a irreversible progress system that more or less allow you to start with whichever planets/moon you want as soon as you unlock the right part. Now, make this "science way more diverse. Require EVA interaction, Manned Station keeping, Space Observatory. Continue with a budget system that give you an incentive to optimize your mission and no just "pile up fuel tank". Lastly, add more part / technology, use missions for both training purpose / more complicated objectives. The result would be a progressively bigger/more efficient Space Program where doing SCIENCE is more funny than mining&selling resources, the Budget and the difficulty of reaching furthest planet would increase steadily the difficulty, while new technology would decrease it. The openness of the game is already assured. - You could either get most of your science-point doing heavy-gain expeditions on one planet only. - Or you could spam probes for low-gain experiment. The exact nature of that "budget system" and the balance required for reputation, science-gain, discovering planet through space-telescope is yet to be known but the point is that science by itself is a perfectly workable goal. ...to the point I'm actually surprised "resources" was ever considered for more than a mean (ISRU) to help the exploration.

Your suggestion make the words TIME PARADOX flash in my eyes. It basically suggest that future/earlier mission you did/in the future somehow happen in front of you while you do a new one. Since KSP is a sandbox that rely on keeping the track of past mission/debris. What if you keep your own mission from happening ? How is the game supposed to deal with on-rail mission ? This is just not possible at all. Unless SQUAD used code from the SBURB game of Homestuck.