Some thoughts on the state of Career Mode.

[regex]

I'm normally a Sandbox player but I do like to try out all of a game's features so that I can have an informed conversation about them, so most of my play time recently has been in Career Mode checking things out. I have to say, having just unlocked the entirety of the level 2 R&D science nodes, I'm liking it a lot better than before. I think the fundamental coherence problems are still there, and I'm not going to rehash them, but overall it's a much better experience.

1. Reentry heating needs a buff, although I will consistently lose small outside parts with little in the way of thermal mass (which is good).

2. I was originally against the Kerbal hiring cost scheme but it works out pretty well as a limiter. Sure, you can always rescue a few of them and get paid doing it, but in practice it tends to limit the crews I have available. The same goes for Kerbal classes; dumb as they seem on the surface, you tend to need more Kerbals, especially with multiple Mobile Labs running. Bonus there. I rescued seven Kerbals early on and buy a few more as needed now.

3. The World's First contracts are awesome and make the game feel much less grindy. With the building paywalls brought down to reasonable levels and the player able to get money and rep by simply doing things, contracts become much more meaningful because you can pick and choose them. Granted, the idiocy of rejecting a ton of contracts is still there, and contracts should really be organized and generated per-body, and the generation scheme still leaves much to be desired (Explore Dres before Explore Duna? KSP plz...), but overall things are much better.

4. Let's not get into what might be better for science, the current tech tree is better and makes at least a bit of sense now; the progression seems more natural.

5. The parts rebalance has been awesome in general. Quite happy with the stock layout.

5a. We need more LF tanks, or that tweakable Porkjet just put out. Seriously, why the hell can't I choose the type of tank I have? All my nuclear tugs need to be made from Mk3 parts?

5b. The new Mobile Lab owns, and it's pretty cheaty as well. Basically the best way I can advise using this is to send out two or three as soon as you can loaded up with the exact same science the others have. I have returned tons of science to KSC from researching the exact same solar orbit reports in multiple labs. The trick is to never send the reports back to KSC, just research them and ignore the fact that you have them.

5c. The materials bay is still stupid. Seriously, this is pretty much the one thing left in KSP that can make me incredibly angry for no reason. I've worked my way through and inured myself to tons of little bugs but that one part is just the wrong shape and size for literally every craft I build. It's completely unwieldy and stupid.

So ... yeah. Much better than 0.90 for being what it is.

(The game I'm playing right now has some mods, mainly informational or to make things less stupid, and I'd be playing Sandbox with most of them too (c'mon, I'm a modder):

A mod I wrote to display the node ejection angle next to the node, Enhanced Navball (<3 this), Porkjet's FSFuelSwitch (includes Firespitter), For Science, Kerbal Engineer, Kerbal Renamer, Science Alert, TAC Fuel Balancer, Tank Lock, Texture Replacer, Thermal Helper, and Kerbal Alarm Clock.)

[zarakon]

A few of my thoughts (mostly the complaints), playing on a modified hard setting

1. Having building costs increased by the PENALTIES slider seems wrong, and is a big source of the grindiness of hard mode. The costs to unlock parts or build rockets don't increase, so why should the cost of buildings?

2. The Kerbin survey missions need more target areas that are actually within reach of the basic jet engine, at least early on. They're all around 18km-20km altitude, which it can't do without rockets.

3. I like the new smaller size of the goo experiment, but I agree with regex that the materials experiment is awkward and annoying to use. If it was just half of its current height, it would be much better. Maybe if it was scaled down to probe size (like an octo or hex) that would be even better.

4. Tourist contracts have never looked appealing. The ones in the Kerbin area pay peanuts, and the more lucrative ones start asking for too many requirements. Also, they tend to involve too many Kerbals. Also, early on we lack any good way of bringing them that doesn't just look ridiculous.

5. The tech tree has felt mostly good, but there are a few things that seem out of place. The rockomax decoupler is in an earlier tier than any of the other 2.5m parts. Similarly the parachutes and heat shield that you would use on a 2.5m capsule are in an earlier tier than those capsules. The basic ladder rungs should really be in an early tier, probably in with the first lander legs or airplane landing gear (it's mostly needed for getting back into airplanes on survey missions).

6. I like the way the Kerbal professions have turned out. It's cool to actually have reasons to bring 3+ of them on a mission.

[BDelacroix]

I stick the mat bay inside the service bay. It fits right in the center of the 2.5m one.

[zarakon]

I stick the mat bay inside the service bay. It fits right in the center of the 2.5m one.

I did that on a recent mission, but it seemed a bit buggy. I had a heat shield under the service bay, and the bay was closed, but the materials experiment still exploded on re-entry.

[regex]

I stick the mat bay inside the service bay. It fits right in the center of the 2.5m one.

I find the service bays look incredibly chunky and unappealing, and the color scheme really doesn't do it for me. Mat bays would be much better if they at all fit the size of the single-Kerbal lander can.

[Moonfrog]

I agree with materials bay, it makes all my lander designs ugly.

[GeneCash]

YES. I agree. I am actually playing a career game for the first time ever. I hate grindy games, and now it's not grindy. It's more "things to do with your rockets" now.

I did edit my save-file to turn up re-entry heat to a value I felt was more realistic... full 200% on the new-game difficulty slider.

[Caelib]

Other than the materials bay, most of this can be customized through custom difficulty settings. I don't really use the materials bay, it's just extra weight for very little overall science when you compare the cost in delta-V to haul it around.

As far as procedural fuel tanks, I don't think this is something you will see in stock because Squad has stated that it detracts from the "Lego-like" building process (or something like that).

[dryer_lint]

I agree that we really need more World First contracts. They're awesome, they're a lot less grindy, and they encourage you to play KSP the CORRECT way, dangit! THE COMMUNITY-APPROVED WAY!

But seriously, those contracts are much better than "send 666 kerbals into the sun" and "test structural girder on intergalactic trajectory" over and over again.

[CaptainKipard]

- It's still quite a bit grindy to me.

- The tech tree and the part progression are still incoherent. I'm finding myself not unlocking half the parts that are available so far.

- Many contracts still don't fit into the context of the progression.

- Some contracts seem completely out of place, like tour missions when you don't even have a 2-Kerbal pod.

- No Action groups make no sense. It's as if Kerbals haven't mastered the high technology of buttons.

[problemecium]

I'm with OP for the most part. I was a little bit disappointed to find that my options for nuclear stages were either use a regular tank at half capacity or use the jet fuel tank that actually contains LESS liquid fuel than the equivalent size regular tank.

I'm actually thinking, in this light, that the Mk1 jet fuel tank needs to be buffed to contain about twice the fuel and moved down the tech tree as necessary, to be replaced by a smaller one and the structural fuselage for those beginner planes.

[basic.syntax]

I like Kerbal Cost... knowing it has the outlet of 'rescue' contracts. You might pay for the first handful of helpers, but the work of fetching them from wherever they are stranded starts looking worth the trouble, as hiring costs increase. Stuff getting more expensive, and other kinds of resource scarcity leads to (hopefully interesting) choices. I wrote in one of the long 'overhaul everything' threads, about XCOM: Enemy Unknown gameplay choices: you would like to do three different things on any given turn, but, you only have enough resources to do two... or one. If you can't 'have it all,' you need to think, plan and choose what's important.

Dittos underlining "World's First" contracts. It's neat to get out there and do stuff, and be rewarded for these discoveries or achievements, without 'waiting for instructions.' I don't think it can be extended to repetitive contract types, however, without some additional thought about exploits: One could simply spam satellites around the highest-paying planet or moon, to print funds. I think repeatable contracts need to be randomly assigned... while the current contract scheme is in place.

Speaking of exploits... 5b about multiple mobile labs. You could rationalize this as a 'space program manager,' putting your scientists in competition with each other on the same samples, I suppose, and they came up with new discoveries independently. But, I don't think it's good to leave it that way, given what I just wrote about resource scarcity pushing (hopefully) interesting gameplay choices on the player. I will try to un-read that, lol.

Tech tree is much better, but still needs balance work. Thanks to the code overhaul, it's easier to move stuff around. But gallons of virtual ink are and will be spilled, probably forever, agonizing over how the stock parts could be organized.

Action groups: A new player wouldn't know what they were missing out on, if they started out in career mode. I think giving access to 2 to start with would be helpful both as a sample of a game feature and its utility. (That logic could be extended to any other game feature that is completely un-available to the starting tier... I don't think it applies equally to everything, needs thought on a case-by-case basis.)

I think the service bays are neat. Just the right size for snack storage. Bill (or is it Bob?) is always going out there, to fetch a cookie. (Val just laughs privately. She packed all her snacks in a carry-on bag.)

[Xannari Ferrows]

It's very objective. It's as if you can only do 1 thing, and follow 1 path. I tried to deviate from that path, and it was only a matter of time before I got short on cash or science. I really don't like career mode, because there's very, very little room for creativity.

[Jonboy]

The first thing I did when 1.0 dropped was force myself to play career mode all the way through for the first time. I've been playing science mode almost exclusively since science was introduced since I wasn't a fan of career mode at first.

I was able to unlock the whole tech tree only leaving Kerbin's SOI three times: once for an initial Duna survey that left a science lab in Duna orbit and 2 landers to grab science and return, again for cheap probe to land on Gilly for a contact, and finally another mission to Duna to drop a science lab base on the poles. The last two tiers were mostly obtained by grinding science from those two labs and another one in Munar orbit.

I never really touched the tourism missions or the ones that ask you to perform science/evas on different locations, the payout is just too low. Satellite missions are a great way to grab cash though: a 7,000 credit rocket can easily get you any contract in Kerbin's SOI. "Build a space station" or "build a base" contracts have huge payouts and you can slap a science lab on those to grind science later in the game.

Cash really never seemed to be an issue early on, because when you're in Kerbin's SOI you rarely spend more than 30K on a rocket. Once you start using Mainsails the cost increases, and once you're using SLS parts you're easily pushing 100k per rocket, which means you have to pile on contracts to make a profit. I only had to really grind for cash a few times for expensive building upgrades (like over two million to upgrade the R&D building.

One cool thing was that I often found myself sending 3 Kerbals on missions at a time, something there was never really incentive to do before. Now, it helps to have Pilots and Scientists on most missions, although Engineers seem less useful. I mainly tossed scientists onto as many missions as possible to level them up for science grinding later in the game.

Overall, I'm glad I forced myself to play through career, but I don't see myself doing it again soon. I'm glad there's finally a use for the science lab and incentive to build bases and space stations in stock. But since it's so easy to just grind science to grab the super expensive tech nodes, there's really no reason to go anywhere beyond Duna in career. I feel like without the labs, I would definitely have been forced to do Jool grand tour to unlock the last two tiers, which would have been cool.

[Pax Kerbana]

Sorry guys but I disagree. The 0.90 hard career was superior to the 1.0.x career in many ways.

The rescue kerbal contracts, once fun, are now spam and annoying. Am I to believe I need to research battery tech when other Kerbal space agencies have already apparently explored the Kerbol system? And I have no choice but to "kidnap" these Kerbals because a new hire cost a ridiculous amount.

My biggest problem is the cost of Kerbals. No way a kerbal should cost 100,000 roots right out of the gate. This isn't congruent AT ALL with any other cost in the game.

From another thread:

All I can say is that the price of a Kerbal does not correlate with the price of spacecraft hardware. Seriously.

If:

F-1 adjusted for inflation cost $15-20 million per engine today

Astronauts make $100,000 per year average, not including pay for spaceflight

The S3 KS-25x4 has (4) F-1 equivalent engines (and costs 32,400 roots)

Then:

The "Mammoth" would cost $60-80 million per unit (engines only!)

Each root is equivalent to $1,800-2,500 US

Xacktar's next hire is a low one-time cost of $630-840 million

And:

Something is seriously wrong. Tell me that I did the math wrong by saying the Mammoth is equivalent to "one" F-1 and still prove this point.

The cost for Kebral hires (per year) should be in the realm of 50-100 roots for my example and 200-400 if I've got it off by 4x. I don't understand how a Kerbal can be "bought" for a one-time fee. But let's say this is represents a 10-year contract. That puts the one-time cost somewhere between 500-1000 and 2000-4000 roots.

I don't want to turn into a whine fest so I'm going to stop there. I really enjoyed the 0.90 hard career... 1.0.2 and now I'm back in boring ol' sandbox.

Edited May 15, 2015 by Pax Kerbana

[regex]

Speaking of exploits... 5b about multiple mobile labs. You could rationalize this as a 'space program manager,' putting your scientists in competition with each other on the same samples, I suppose, and they came up with new discoveries independently. But, I don't think it's good to leave it that way, given what I just wrote about resource scarcity pushing (hopefully) interesting gameplay choices on the player. I will try to un-read that, lol.

I normally wouldn't take advantage of such an exploit for KSP because the tech tree is a big part of the career gameplay, I just stumbled across it and thought I'd mention it. I've only got two labs outside of Kerbin SOI right now.

Tech tree is much better, but still needs balance work. Thanks to the code overhaul, it's easier to move stuff around. But gallons of virtual ink are and will be spilled, probably forever, agonizing over how the stock parts could be organized.

Yes, that's one of the things I tried to make a point of in the OP, same as how career mode is structured and the features work together. Overall I feel like the career mode is pretty substandard gameplay, but it's now "pretty fun" substandard gameplay. At least now I have landing gear with my starting planes...

I think the service bays are neat.

Yeah, service bays, or the idea thereof, are great. These ones, though, are ... ugly, for lack of a better word. I don't really feel compelled to use them.

It's very objective. It's as if you can only do 1 thing, and follow 1 path. I tried to deviate from that path, and it was only a matter of time before I got short on cash or science. I really don't like career mode, because there's very, very little room for creativity.

I didn't really feel railroaded at all, contrary to previous iterations, but obviously YMMV.

Cash really never seemed to be an issue early on, because when you're in Kerbin's SOI you rarely spend more than 30K on a rocket. Once you start using Mainsails the cost increases, and once you're using SLS parts you're easily pushing 100k per rocket, which means you have to pile on contracts to make a profit. I only had to really grind for cash a few times for expensive building upgrades (like over two million to upgrade the R&D building.

Pretty much every one of my launches now (level 2 R&D building) involves a Mainsail, lol. The way I see it, you need to get out there and pile on a bunch of related contracts while you're at it. My current Duna mission involves a station (which I wanted to put there anyway, got a contract for it so I got ~paid~), an Ike lander (explore contract + another Ike contract), a Duna lander (four contracts), and two tugs able to push payload out there on a rotating schedule. If I need quick cash I plant a flag or two on the Mun or Minmus, which also gets my Kerbals experience. Meanwhile, the big outside-of-Kerbin-SOI contracts fund the long-term stuff.

So basically, for me, it boiled down to setting some goals (get some Duna infrastructure going, which will fund Dres and Jool infrastructure) and getting out of Kerbin SOI where the pay is much better.

Overall, I'm glad I forced myself to play through career, but I don't see myself doing it again soon. I'm glad there's finally a use for the science lab and incentive to build bases and space stations in stock. But since it's so easy to just grind science to grab the super expensive tech nodes, there's really no reason to go anywhere beyond Duna in career. I feel like without the labs, I would definitely have been forced to do Jool grand tour to unlock the last two tiers, which would have been cool.

After a certain point it's just sandbox mode. I agree, though, I don't know if I'd do another one of these again. Well, maybe.

[adinfinitum]

I'm mostly just here to agree with the material bay being the wrong size for just about everything. Maybe I'm just too concerned with aesthetics, but when I make a manned lander and want to have a materials bay on it, I feel it always ends up with the lander being tall and skinny, or wide enough that it looks absurd when you stick a fairing around it.

Other than that, I never really got into career mode before, but I'm really enjoying it in this version. My only complaint with the gameplay itself is that it seems to favor one-run missions over a space infrastructure. For example, heatshields aren't reusable for more than a few times. Idk if squad is planning on increasing the reentry heat or not, but if they do there's a good chance interplanetary tugs will actually need heatshields that last more than a few trips. Another example is the experience system. I've got tug drivers, miners, tour guides, and other assorted kerbals that have more important things to do than return to Kerbin just so they can get their experience points.

[Frostiken]

1) Early aircraft parts are available generally too late to take advantage of many 'survey Kerbin at...' contracts.

2) Kerbal hiring costs, to me, makes the 'build station on...' missions pointless. I have to fill it with 12 kerbals... which costs me like 1.5 million kerbucks in hiring costs alone? Not happening. Ever.

3) Grind grind grind grind grind grind grind grind.

4) Tech tree is still abysmal.

[Superfluous J]

1) Early aircraft parts are available generally too late to take advantage of many 'survey Kerbin at...' contracts.

True. Atmo surveys and part tests are essentially cruft. I ignore them. If they capped at the max altitude that a plane can be expected to reach (instead of about 2x that) then they'd be far more attractive for me as a player.

2) Kerbal hiring costs, to me, makes the 'build station on...' missions pointless. I have to fill it with 12 kerbals... which costs me like 1.5 million kerbucks in hiring costs alone? Not happening. Ever.

You don't need to fill those stations. Just send them up empty. That said, I totally agree with you. I cheat money in, hire who I need, and then cheat the money back down to what I had before. And I don't feel bad about it in the slightest.

[regex]

Another example is the experience system. I've got tug drivers, miners, tour guides, and other assorted kerbals that have more important things to do than return to Kerbin just so they can get their experience points.

Yeah, much as I actually kind of like the classes now because they encourage bringing along more people, and I'm all about the manned missions, experience not counting until they've come back to Kerbin is pretty dumb.

I cheat money in, hire who I need, and then cheat the money back down to what I had before. And I don't feel bad about it in the slightest.

You're cheating for an audience dude, I'll bet you'd do just fine with the hiring costs as-is. Not to say they aren't expensive...

[Superfluous J]

Yeah, much as I actually kind of like the classes now because they encourage bringing along more people, and I'm all about the manned missions, experience not counting until they've come back to Kerbin is pretty dumb.

You're cheating for an audience dude, I'll bet you'd do just fine with the hiring costs as-is. Not to say they aren't expensive...

The thing is, these two things together encourage strongly a "one mission at a time" space program. And don't get me started on KAC not being stock...

I can't imagine running a far-flung space program with resource gathering bases on several planets and moons, and several science stations here and there each full of scientists, ad then going to the astronaut complex to pick up a new pilot and seeing that she'd cost me half a million dollars.

[MalfunctionM1Ke]

3. The World's First contracts are awesome and make the game feel much less grindy. With the building paywalls brought down to reasonable levels and the player able to get money and rep by simply doing things, contracts become much more meaningful because you can pick and choose them. Granted, the idiocy of rejecting a ton of contracts is still there, and contracts should really be organized and generated per-body, and the generation scheme still leaves much to be desired (Explore Dres before Explore Duna? KSP plz...), but overall things are much better.

I would like to add something here.

How about instead of getting contracted to build I.E. a Spacestation around Kerbin over and over again, to expand id. First, get a contract to build a hub with a couple of Docking ports, then send a Solar-Array up, then the Lab and so on. Same goes for Bases... Lets turn those Spam-Contracts into progressive Gameplay.

[adinfinitum]

That's another design decision I don't understand, why does the price for hiring a kerbal increase each time? Maybe the reasoning was in a devblog and I missed it, and I could see that its supposed to simulate the higher cost of having to pay more wages, but it really makes me not want to start another mission when I've got to pay 5 times the cost of a rocket to get the pilot I need.

[regex]

And don't get me started on KAC not being stock...

That right there is the biggest problem with multi-tasking in stock; it's been discouraged to begin with. I still don't think paying for Kerbals is that big of a deal, but I won't argue that the price is high.

- - - Updated - - -

How about instead of getting contracted to build I.E. a Spacestation around Kerbin over and over again, to expand id. First, get a contract to build a hub with a couple of Docking ports, then send a Solar-Array up, then the Lab and so on. Same goes for Bases... Lets turn those Spam-Contracts into progressive Gameplay.

What you're asking for is beyond Squad's career mode design. You need to turn to mods. This is why I still call career mode "substandard" gameplay.

[basic.syntax]

That's another design decision I don't understand, why does the price for hiring a kerbal increase each time? Maybe the reasoning was in a devblog and I missed it, and I could see that its supposed to simulate the higher cost of having to pay more wages, but it really makes me not want to start another mission when I've got to pay 5 times the cost of a rocket to get the pilot I need.

They didn't share their rationale for adding cost scaling in the announcement, so we get to speculate about it (devblog link)

Contracts provide a relief valve for the costs: stranded Kerbals are grateful for your help, and will join your space program, for free

Edit:

That right there is the biggest problem with multi-tasking in stock; it's been discouraged to begin with.

I think more like: the logs say the average user has trouble getting into orbit, and so more effort has gone into basic UI work, like the VAB info panel, which saw more developer work in the last go-around, expanded to an "engineer's report" to help players with the most basic rocket building difficulties. Given time, I think Stock could end up with some KAC-like features. Edited May 15, 2015 by basic.syntax