Satellites?

[ilo]

My point being that if you choose to play in a way that makes satellites and probes useless ("you build a bigger rocket") then of course they're useless!

I totally agree with this.

Actually, the good (or bad) thing of the game is that.. there is no goal, so you will have to start creating your own goals at some point, this is how "challenges" started in the forum too. As a matter of fact, you will see that long and complex 'missions' in the forum are just 'personal challenges', not the game flow itself.

I found myself in the same situation as you, asking for the purpose of the satellites, and I can confirm you that now satellites are a requirement for unmanned missions everytime I play KSP, including the delay btw. I've seen awesome mission reports in the forum that would not be possible without satellites. I've seen very funny situations in twitch during some streams because of the satellites too.

Once you start playing KSP you will soon need something more challenging than getting science points for pleasure and start creating your own personal missions. They don't have to be extremelly complicated to be funny indeed. And this 'personal mission' can be done in career mode too, I mean, you might have to go through the whole 'science' and 'money' hardwork first, and trying to spend as less as possible, so you can finally start working your own 'personal mission' while completing contracts for funding it.

Cheers!

PS: as an example (there are thousands in the forum) I'm currently involved in "conquering" the dark side of the mun. The final mission is manned, of course, but before I can do that I first have to go unmanned. Now, the 'light' time in the dark side of the mun is limitted, I can't just simply put tons of battery cells in there: I need to do it while that face of the mun has direct sun light for the ground station to be operative. As this is (my personal requirement) a cheap mission, only the reflectron DPR-10 is allowed in the Mun for communications. That actually forces me to set a satellite network around the mun to match that requirement. As this is a cheap mission, I have to reduce the number of satellites and their componets to the bare minimun. I have set and tested too many different options to provide a reliable network communication between kerbin and the dark side of the Mun for the mission, done a docens of plans and calculations. As it is a cheap mission (did I tell you?) I had to set a limit in the ammount of fuel and rockets. I was able to setup the whole network communication in a single launch (that is another challenge, because you have to orbit sats while other ship is heading the Mun, and then you realise you have to control 7 flights at the same time) so I had to test and plan a lot of different possible transfers. Trust me if I tell you that I spent days (more than a week) trying to prepare everything (on paper, using calcs, setting up the mods, etc..) and after that, it took me two days to get the satellite network working.. I'm exhausted and I just have started, and this is hapenning is in the Mun, just minutes away.. but oh my.. this is sooo funny!!!

Edited March 5, 2015 by ilo

[theoneandonlyboiler]

Well, I have found a fix for me, at least I think so. Now that I undestand the mechanics of the game I will start a new campaign in science mode. But this time I will play with only 10% science and a slightly tweaked tech tree as well as slightly tweaked science values and transmission effectiveness. And I will use TAC Life Support and probably Station Science. All aimed at making it really hard to get science without going to other planets and making early probe missions (before you have the tech to do manned return missions) a must.

[ilo]

That is a good start, the flexibility allows the tweaking and personalisation to adjust each gameplay. Later you can introduce FAR and DRE, that would require more complex building and staging which will affect your ship building too, making large ships complex and encouraging small payloads too.

Whatever your plan is, good luck!

[Pecan]

...And once the necessary tech is available rovers in combination with a science lab on the lander can speed things up dramatically as it greatly reduces the need for multiple mission to the same planet/moon ... stations/bases on the other hand are indeed completely useless ...

First, there's nothing wrong with the way you choose to play, nor the way other people choose to play. In different modes and with different mods from you satellites are indeed useful, even vital, so it's only the style you prefer that makes them useless.

Now the reason I actually replied (because I think the above is obvious and non-controversial) is that you'll find it takes sooo long to drive anywhere with a rover that a station with a lander making multiple landings/ascents or 'hopping' between close biomes is much, much quicker than any other method. The 'station' only has to have the lab and spare fuel though.

Have fun.

[theoneandonlyboiler]

First, there's nothing wrong with the way you choose to play, nor the way other people choose to play. In different modes and with different mods from you satellites are indeed useful, even vital, so it's only the style you prefer that makes them useless.

Of course theres nothing wrong with different playstyles. All I'm saying is that a game should give the player a reason to use all it's features. I should not need mods to play a game propper. Mods are a great way of expanding or altering a game, however they should nod be needed to make already existing features useful or worse, add features that should be in the vanilla game. I'm speaking of things like "Deadly Reentry", "TAC Lifesupport", "Station Science", "Kerbal Engineer Redux" and "Procedural Fairings". Those are all things that need to be in a game like this. I should not need to install mods to get basic realism and functionality into a game. Now I can see why there is nothing like "Remote Tech" in KSP, because that would make things really tedious and you can always asume that communications is taken care of by some other departement. But these other mods, well, the game just feels incomplete without them.

Now if other players are happy with doing stuff just for the hell of it thats great for them. But it doesn't cover the fact that there is a flaw in the design of KSP. Which is that you can completely ignore 2/3 of the possibilities it offers. I Play many sandbox and open world games, but I've never seen one that offers so many great features without any incentive to use them.

Now that might sound as if I don't like KSP too much. Believe when I say that quite the opposite is true. With the right mods and some tweaks this is easily one of the greatest games I've ever played. I mean I logged 84 hours over the last four weeks with this game, and some more looking for mods, posting in the forum and messing around with the data files. But that's exactly the reason why the lack of incentive to use all it's many great features and possibilities pains me so much, because I see so much unused potential.

Now the reason I actually replied is that you'll find it takes sooo long to drive anywhere with a rover that a station with a lander making multiple landings/ascents or 'hopping' between close biomes is much, much quicker than any other method. The 'station' only has to have the lab and spare fuel though.

Well, I prefer using a rover to "biome hopping" any day. Just got to make sure my landing site is located close to several biomes. My rover goes up to 36m/s on the Mun depending on the terrain (and is great fun to drive). It doesn' take long to reach the individual biomes and get back to the landing site. And since it has 2 science jr. and 4 of every other Experiment on board it does get back some serious science from each trip

The drawback of course is that it is really heavy. I can bring it along on the lander for use on mun and minmus, but for anything further away it needs ist own launch. But that might be fun too, having two payloads going to Duna and try to drop them on the same spot. I look forward to that

[Pecan]

...Now if other players are happy with doing stuff just for the hell of it thats great for them. But it doesn't cover the fact that there is a flaw in the design of KSP. Which is that you can completely ignore 2/3 of the possibilities it offers. I Play many sandbox and open world games, but I've never seen one that offers so many great features without any incentive to use them....

Sorry, but either you're arguing in circles or we have a language issue.

Most of your statements read, to me, as "This is an objective fact, true for everyone under all circumstances". If you wish to state them as subjective truth, "In MY games, I find this is true" that's a different matter.

Career mode gives contracts to place satellites in orbit, therefore KSP gives an incentive to use them.

No mode of KSP rewards using rovers and repeat-landers are generally faster and more reliable so, logically there is less incentive to use them.

John Wanamaker said, "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don't know which half."

In KSP, which "2/3 of the possibilities" people choose to ignore depends entirely on what they're doing within KSP. Clearly we have very different ideas of what we want from a simulator, a sandbox, a game and, consequently, KSP specifically.

[Yukon0009]

When 1.0 comes out I suspect many people will have scanning satellites.

[GoSlash27]

I have found one job that is useful for satellites in stock: Finding interplanetary launch windows.

I put a tiny sat in orbit around Kerbol just outside Kerbin's SoI. Then I can use it's maneuver nodes to tell me when my launch window opens up to whatever planet.

Best,

-Slashy

[Starhawk]

I have found one job that is useful for satellites in stock: Finding interplanetary launch windows.

I put a tiny sat in orbit around Kerbol just outside Kerbin's SoI. Then I can use it's maneuver nodes to tell me when my launch window opens up to whatever planet.

That is an excellent idea!

[theoneandonlyboiler]

Sorry, but either you're arguing in circles or we have a language issue.

Most of your statements read, to me, as "This is an objective fact, true for everyone under all circumstances". If you wish to state them as subjective truth, "In MY games, I find this is true" that's a different matter.

Well, I did admit that if you're into doing stuff for no other reason than having fun, there is no issue with the game. I however get my fun out of progressing through a game, and through using all it's features while doing so. When I see a game that let's me progress more efficiently by ignoring some of it's features, then I think that is a flaw in the design, at least as far as progress-based gameplay is concerned.

So I'm only looking at it from the perspective of what a game should be like, and from that perspective I do believe KSP beeing flawed is an objective fact.

Career mode gives contracts to place satellites in orbit, therefore KSP gives an incentive to use them.

Well I would argue that the game telling you to do something is not an incentive. Incentive to me means reason for dooing something out of my own initiative, not because the game commands me to do it.

No mode of KSP rewards using rovers and repeat-landers are generally faster and more reliable so, logically there is less incentive to use them.

Yes, rovers are less effective, but not to a point where they become useless. And they also add variety to the gameplay (as in for once I get to drive around instead of flying) and offer a challenge: Building an effective rover and figure out how to bring it along for the mission. So there is still enough incentive to use them. But probes? Probe-missions are even easier than their manned counterpart, so no reason doing them for the challenge. And probe-missions play out more or less like manned missions, especially if you plan on getting them back to kerbin for maximum science efficiency. And you can't get the same amount of science with them that you could with a manned mission. However with a rover you can get the same amount as with biome hopping. It's just a less efficient way of doing it.

In KSP, which "2/3 of the possibilities" people choose to ignore depends entirely on what they're doing within KSP. Clearly we have very different ideas of what we want from a simulator, a sandbox, a game and, consequently, KSP specifically.

Obviously. I expect a game to give me a reason to use all it's features, which in my eyes KSP doesn't in it's vanilla state. I'm not a creative person, and I don't do things just so I have done them. I don't invest hours in building a spacestation that doesn't serve a purpose. As I said previously, I never ever played creative mode in any game because I don't se the point in something like that. It's a game, it should have progress and goals, everything should have a purpose and there should be some reward for doing stuff. Otherwise it stops beeing a game and becomes a toy.

So I guess it all boils down to what you expect or want from a game. Off course for some KSP may be perfect in it's current state, and for others it is not. We could probably spend the next few weeks arguing and would still not agree on anything. So I think it's best we leave it be. I would off course welcome and read a last reply to this post, but I will not reply to it. This is my last post in this thread as it looks to me that we indeed argue in circles

Edited March 10, 2015 by theoneandonlyboiler

[Pecan]

** snip **

Exactly. Re-read what you wrote about the reasons you use rovers, then try to reconcile that with all your reasons why KSP is wrong. The two positions are incompatible; resolved by the simple fact you don't want to use satellites and feel the need not only to blame KSP for that decision but also to tell the rest of us we're wrong.