Some thoughts on the state of Career Mode.

[Norcalplanner]

Regarding Kerbal experience, it seems to me that we need a way to level them up without going all the way back to Kerbin. IMHO, what is needed is a big and heavy headquarters module (say 3.75m and 15 tons) which can be incorporated into stations, surface bases, or capital ships, where a visit is treated the same as returning to Kerbin for experience purposes only. You could require the Kerbal to transfer to the HQ, then use a bunch of power briefly (call it transmitting the promotion ceremony) and then the Kerbal is leveled up. You could even state that there has to be abother Kerbal present which has equal or greater experience than the Kerbal being promoted. It would provide yet another reason to build larger facilities.

[Mister Spock]

Call me a heretic, but I kind of like the high costs for hiring Kerbals. It gives me incentive to do rescue contracts, which I enjoy, and which are profitable. Perhaps more importantly, it makes Kerbal lives precious, as they should be. In my current game, with Kerbal Construction Time and no reverting, I simulate the heck out of every manned mission before going "live" with it, and I'm tense throughout the actual live mission. The tension makes success all the more sweet. Failures do suck. I do more unmanned missions than I've done before, but that's as it should be.

I think career is quite fun. My only concern so far is the need for more liquid fuel tanks for nuclear engines.

Edit: OK, I have a second concern -- XP for Kerbils -- and I like Norcal's idea to address it.

[Asmayus]

I love career mode, but rejecting tons of contracts in order to get the one you want gets really old after some time. I wish the mechanic for picking contracts were a bit different, something like this:

- You can open new "programs", such as a Mun program, a Minmus Program or a Duna Program. When you open a new program, you get first the "explore body" contract, then start getting other types of contracts. If you close a program for a certain body, you no longer get contracts for that planet.

- Maybe we could even have sub-programs, such as, for example, "Mun Orbit Operations" (satellites, space stations, rescue missions); "Mun Surface Exploration" (plant flag, surveys, etc); and "Mun Tourism" (tourism contracts). And certain types of programs could become available as you upgrade your Mission Control and Tracking Station buildings.

Just an idea, but I doubt they'd change the mechanic after 1.0.

This is a fantastic idea. It really hits the nail on the head. Bravo!

[Jonboy]

You can open new "programs", such as a Mun program, a Minmus Program or a Duna Program.

This is really a fantastic idea. You're right, it will probably never make it into stock. But it would be a freaking awesome mod!

[Hotaru]

I actually love the idea of Kerbal hiring costs in principle, as you say, it makes them feel a lot more valuable and it does make realistic sense that hiring, training, equipping, etc. new Kerbals should cost money. It never felt quite right in 0.90 that they were free and in limitless supply, although I never quite had the heart to treat them as "expendable." My main problem is the ridiculously costs--orders of magnitude higher than the cost of actual missions--which, combined with the easy availability of lots of rescue contracts, renders hiring Kerbals pretty much pointless from a gameplay standpoint, at least the way I've been playing (also with KCT, incidentally).

Also I don't see how it makes any kind of sense--either realistic OR gameplay--that Kerbal "n" costs less than Kerbal "n+1." Realistically, why does training one astronaut make training the next one more expensive? Gameplay-wise, why should I be actively discouraged from using large crews or having lots of missions going at once--especially when I can accomplish pretty much the same thing anyway by completing rescue contracts?

[Superfluous J]

I think people underestimate the training / development / pay / organizational costs / even the PR issues if one dies that are associated with a Kerbalnaut...I think 400k may actually be an understatement of the real cost. But then again...you can't build a rocket for a 50k IRL...so who knows!

Then why, if you kill off a dozen Kerbals, is the next one CHEAPER?

[herbal space program]

I also think the programs idea is a great one. Another thing I would REALLY like to see as well is for the exploration contracts to at least sometimes have you actually FIND SOMETHING in all those places you have to scan, visit, sample, and report on. Things to find could include unique terrain features, rare resources, alien artifacts that give you out-of-sequence techs, or even a kerbalized version of the Bob's Big Boy statue! That sort of treasure hunting would make the career game so much more fun for me. They could stretch the value of each individual easter egg by having you first notice something anomalous in a flyover mission when you complete it, then have that completion automatically generate a contract to visit that site on the ground. They could even add another step after that where you have to dig. If I really start fantasizing, I imagine that the alien artifact finds could represent a chain of clues that have to be followed one by one, to progressively harder-to-reach sites, ultimately leading to a boss alien site that after a lot of poking and prodding would yield a faster-than-light drive that allows you to visit a different star system! OK, now I'm just talking crazy, but there's SO MUCH they could do to make the game more fun by having exploration of all the bodies result in more than just the same old boring Kerbal selfies. As it stands now, I'm having a hard time staying motivated to play through a career game in 1.0, which gives me a big old sad.

- - - Updated - - -

This is really a fantastic idea. You're right, it will probably never make it into stock.

Maybe not Stock 1.0, but if they bail on the game now, they will be leaving it half finished! What is the point of creating such an awesome simulation world if you don't actually populate it with cool stuff to find and do? All the modders are awesome, but there's no way they are going to be able to make the kind of concerted, multi-person effort that will be required to implement content that has real depth. Squad has to that, and although I don't expect them to do it all for free, if they don't do it at all I am going to be genuinely upset.

- - - Updated - - -

I guess part of Squad's problem is that they are not really the right kind of programmers to be creating an immersive linear campaign-style game. That takes a pretty different skillset from creating an amazing physics simulation engine, and I think it's fairly clear they are out of their depth with the career part. They need to see if they can poach some people from Firaxis!

Edited May 15, 2015 by herbal space program

[PB666]

- 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.

A1. Tech tree needed to be stretched out from the previous versions, you could essentially fill the entire tech-tree without ever having to leave the Kerbin system.

A2. Not incoherant IMHO, but parts need to be shifted around. For example an electric power generator is easily prerocket period. You can generate power from a thermocouple, inefficiently. Batteries showed up in the 18th century. And how can you have a generator on a rocket and not have one for the capsule. Wheels are 2000 years old so some rudimentary wheel should exist at start. In additions the propellar existed in the time of gallileo, used on steam ships of the 19th century. So .. . . . . . At start the game needs a piston engine, propellar and wheels, something say of capability of DC3. There is a Mod in curse that converts LF or MP to electric power. The MP in the capsule is never used early game, why have it unless it can be used.

A3. Agreed

A4. But they are doable as soon as you get a docking port.

A5. Agreed. Action groups need to be early game. At least 1 action group should be available at start, the number available should increase as one moves up the tech-tree. However I have found this to be more of an annoyance.

[Aragosnat]

I wonder if Kerbal hiring costs are tied to the "funds penalties" slider like building upgrades? Like you, I always thought of that slider as a "failure is not an option" mode and cranked it up; it never occurred to me till reading this thread that it might be responsible for high upgrade costs.

Most certainly is tied to the penalties costs.

[Hotaru]

Most certainly is tied to the penalties costs.

Cool! You're right, I just tried reducing penalties in my persistence file from 1 to 0.1 & now Kerbal number 26 would only cost me 42,000 spacebucks instead of 420,000. That makes sense, still expensive enough to matter (still more expensive than my 4-kerbal SSTO) but not enough to be prohibitive. It's not a perfect solution since I actually think the building upgrades are pretty well balanced with penalties at 100%, but since I've already got all my buildings upgraded in my current save anyway I think I'll leave it this way.

Now off to hire some Kerbals, finally!

[Wjolcz]

I agree with pretty much everything from the OP. Also using the same mods because they are essential. 1.0 still needs some polishing here and there, but wouldn't go back to 0.90.

It seems I'm not the only one trying to avoid doing science with materials bay. That thing is heavy and oversized.

Edit: The stock game needs stock fuel pipes!

Edited May 15, 2015 by Veeltch

[basic.syntax]

A reddit poster produced a graph showing how the contract pool is filled with trivial / significant / exceptional, based on reputation score.

[Frostiken]

As I said in another thread...

snip...

KSP needs a convincing Macro-model framework (A rug that ties the whole room together)

A future KSP requires a complete "do over" of the career and experience dynamic (including as mentioned above - a revised R&D mechanism and tech node/part construct)

The relationship between a player's space program and the various subcontractors needs to be turned on its head. Currently the player is working for the subcontractors and needs them to provide Funding for any exploration - which is totally the opposite of any analogues to my knowledge. Let the player plan exploration programs, allocate budgets , select subcontractors to assist based on their bids and historical reliability and performance, and allow reputation to drive annual funding. This game is missing a convincing Macro-model.

EDIT: And BTW, the excuse of "KSP is a sandbox game" does not support implementing a crappy and grindy deterministic career mode - either do it right or don't do it at all.

That's what I was hoping career mode would be like. Instead it's kind of a joke - it's so bad I'm shocked that reviewers didn't dock the game more for it.

I was expecting something like X-COM. You have a monthly budget from the government, you have engineers you need to pay to build your rockets, scientists to process your science and who unlock tech tree nodes, goals the government expects you to meet, and you are competing against AI-controlled space programs.

[Hotaru]

I imagine the devs want to keep the focus on building & flying space ships rather than "program management." Although I agree that a monthly budget would make more realistic sense than the current contract system, and possibly make reputation a little less pointless to boot, currently (even with a few program-management type mods installed, like KCT) I'm spending the vast majority of my time either building stuff in the VAB/SPH or out there controlling ships (or reading internet forums), only occasionally stopping by Mission Control or the Admin building, which is as it should be. As much as I love X-COM, I often felt like I spent more time in that game micromanaging my resources in the base than I did actually fighting the aliens--I'd hate to see that happen to KSP's career mode.

[Geschosskopf]

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.

I myself like to play "sandbox" games in career mode, mostly because it gives Kerbals something to do when they colonize other planets. Without functioning science, colonies are merely piles of parts with no real function. And I've been playing quite a while now, so don't need to learn how the game works. Thus, I play with Easy settings to maximize contract rewards, so I can blow through the tech tree quite rapidly and get on with the Evil Space Empire. Besides, Evil Space Empires are expensive so I need lots of money.

The bottom line is, what I want out of career mode is an utter lack of grinding. I want to unlock the tech tree without having to do repititous missions. And that used to be possible prior to 1.x. Now it's not so I'm not liking the new version.

The main problem with 1.x careers is the removal of almost all science awards for contracts. Used to be, you could get boatloads of science by testing parts, and that actually made a lot more sense---test prototypes to get production models in the future. But in 1.x, that's almost totally gone so the only real way to get science in the stock game is to grind out biomes on Mun and Minmus with boring, repetitive missions. Even with Easy settings. IOW, rather than doing actual R&D testing, science has been reduced to the "Great Blueprint Scavenger Hunt", as if the plans for the next tier of parts were hidden under various Mun rocks. And this is all compounded by the expansion of the tech tree to require more science to complete it. AARRGGGHHH!!! All I can say here is, thank the Dark Gods for DMagic Orbital Science, which not only allows you to gather more science than stock, but has contracts that give lucrative rewards for getting such science.

Besides all that, there's the fundamental problem of limiting a player's options. Used to be, you had a choice of doing R&D, grinding biomes, or a combination of both. Nowadays, you have no choice. This is bad game design.

Now, as to your specific points:

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).

I tend to disagree. For starters, the whole heat system in KSP is fundamentally flawed in having more massive objects heat up faster, which is backwards to reality. So that needs to be fixed first and foremost.

Second, certain parts should be immune to reentry heating. Ladders especially. For ladders to work at all, they have to be on the outside of the ship where you can't protect them.

And in any case, I am firmly opposed to making any of these so-called "realism" features mandatory. They should be optional as difficulty settings. I don't mind playing with them (I've used FAR and DRE since I started playing KSP) but from a game design standpoint, they should be optional. Also, I am firmly opposed to defining "realism" as "just like on Earth", when nothing in KSP is at all like Earth down to the level of the fundamental forces. Kerbin and Earth cannot even have the same periodic table, let alone similar atmospheres. If you want to play on Earth, go play Orbiter or use RSS. But otherwise, quit trying to impose Earth-like conditions on a place where they can't exist.

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.

I don't like having to pay for Kerbals. Where's the justification? They come with no skills so you haven't invested in training, and you can't teach them anything on the ground anyway. And why do they get more expensive the more you hire, if there's no change in what you get? If I have to pay for Kerbals, then I want control over what I get. I want to be able to buy Kerbals with specific skill sets (both class and level), and specified levels of brains and bravery. But the unskilled, randomly classed volunteers should be free.

I also am not a fan of the class system as a whole. Pilots are useless once you get a probe core with SAS, scientists are useless once you finish the tech tree (and aren't that useful beforehand anyway). Only engineers have any practical value or continual need. And there's no way to fix this situation without ruining the game in other ways, like making rockets horribly inefficient dV-wise without a pilot. EEK!

The bottom line is that the only time class matters is early in the game, and all it does is force the player to build bigger, more expensive rockets than is really wise at that point given his available parts and money. And this is compounded by how experience works, which forces you to grind repetitive training missions to build up your roster, and how Kerbals don't learn from practice but only new experiences.

In sum, IMHO the whole Kerbal class system should be scrapped, or at least allow players to cross-train Kerbals in multiple skills, so that 2/3 of all Kerbals do not become redundant before you even head to Duna. Further, the experience system needs considerable revision. I'd start by removing the requirement of returning to Kerbin to reap the benefits, and I'd even allow achievements at each planet to stack KXP instead of only getting the highest amount.

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

Not me. The change to engines, for instance, went out of its way to give each one a specific role with as little overlap as possible. While this might make sense from the realworld POV, it's not a good for gameplay. This is because it takes away a lot of player creativity. Now there are many fewer possible solutions to the same problem, so players are herded along more-or-less the same path to the same end. There's now a distinct lack of variety in the designs of different players (geez, every Mk2 spaceplane now looks virtually identical). Further, because for key certain thngs there's almost only One Correct Answer, players will just memorize these and stop experimenting and optimizign designs with creative combinations of parts. This saddens me very much.

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?

Agreed.

[Superfluous J]

I myself like to play "sandbox" games in career mode, mostly because it gives Kerbals something to do when they colonize other planets. Without functioning science, colonies are merely piles of parts with no real function. And I've been playing quite a while now, so don't need to learn how the game works. Thus, I play with Easy settings to maximize contract rewards, so I can blow through the tech tree quite rapidly and get on with the Evil Space Empire. Besides, Evil Space Empires are expensive so I need lots of money.

The bottom line is, what I want out of career mode is an utter lack of grinding. I want to unlock the tech tree without having to do repititous missions. And that used to be possible prior to 1.x. Now it's not so I'm not liking the new version.

The main problem with 1.x careers is the removal of almost all science awards for contracts. Used to be, you could get boatloads of science by testing parts, and that actually made a lot more sense---test prototypes to get production models in the future. But in 1.x, that's almost totally gone so the only real way to get science in the stock game is to grind out biomes on Mun and Minmus with boring, repetitive missions. Even with Easy settings. IOW, rather than doing actual R&D testing, science has been reduced to the "Great Blueprint Scavenger Hunt", as if the plans for the next tier of parts were hidden under various Mun rocks. And this is all compounded by the expansion of the tech tree to require more science to complete it. AARRGGGHHH!!! All I can say here is, thank the Dark Gods for DMagic Orbital Science, which not only allows you to gather more science than stock, but has contracts that give lucrative rewards for getting such science.

Besides all that, there's the fundamental problem of limiting a player's options. Used to be, you had a choice of doing R&D, grinding biomes, or a combination of both. Nowadays, you have no choice. This is bad game design.

Now, as to your specific points:

I tend to disagree. For starters, the whole heat system in KSP is fundamentally flawed in having more massive objects heat up faster, which is backwards to reality. So that needs to be fixed first and foremost.

Second, certain parts should be immune to reentry heating. Ladders especially. For ladders to work at all, they have to be on the outside of the ship where you can't protect them.

And in any case, I am firmly opposed to making any of these so-called "realism" features mandatory. They should be optional as difficulty settings. I don't mind playing with them (I've used FAR and DRE since I started playing KSP) but from a game design standpoint, they should be optional. Also, I am firmly opposed to defining "realism" as "just like on Earth", when nothing in KSP is at all like Earth down to the level of the fundamental forces. Kerbin and Earth cannot even have the same periodic table, let alone similar atmospheres. If you want to play on Earth, go play Orbiter or use RSS. But otherwise, quit trying to impose Earth-like conditions on a place where they can't exist.

I don't like having to pay for Kerbals. Where's the justification? They come with no skills so you haven't invested in training, and you can't teach them anything on the ground anyway. And why do they get more expensive the more you hire, if there's no change in what you get? If I have to pay for Kerbals, then I want control over what I get. I want to be able to buy Kerbals with specific skill sets (both class and level), and specified levels of brains and bravery. But the unskilled, randomly classed volunteers should be free.

I also am not a fan of the class system as a whole. Pilots are useless once you get a probe core with SAS, scientists are useless once you finish the tech tree (and aren't that useful beforehand anyway). Only engineers have any practical value or continual need. And there's no way to fix this situation without ruining the game in other ways, like making rockets horribly inefficient dV-wise without a pilot. EEK!

The bottom line is that the only time class matters is early in the game, and all it does is force the player to build bigger, more expensive rockets than is really wise at that point given his available parts and money. And this is compounded by how experience works, which forces you to grind repetitive training missions to build up your roster, and how Kerbals don't learn from practice but only new experiences.

In sum, IMHO the whole Kerbal class system should be scrapped, or at least allow players to cross-train Kerbals in multiple skills, so that 2/3 of all Kerbals do not become redundant before you even head to Duna. Further, the experience system needs considerable revision. I'd start by removing the requirement of returning to Kerbin to reap the benefits, and I'd even allow achievements at each planet to stack KXP instead of only getting the highest amount.

Not me. The change to engines, for instance, went out of its way to give each one a specific role with as little overlap as possible. While this might make sense from the realworld POV, it's not a good for gameplay. This is because it takes away a lot of player creativity. Now there are many fewer possible solutions to the same problem, so players are herded along more-or-less the same path to the same end. There's now a distinct lack of variety in the designs of different players (geez, every Mk2 spaceplane now looks virtually identical). Further, because for key certain thngs there's almost only One Correct Answer, players will just memorize these and stop experimenting and optimizign designs with creative combinations of parts. This saddens me very much.

Agreed.

Sorry I'm on my phone so it's hard to edit posts. While I have problems with some of the rebalancing those do not extend to engines. You can still be creative but now I can make an efficient ship with engines other than the nuke our the 487s

[regex]

I want to unlock the tech tree without having to do repititous missions.

Used to be, you could get boatloads of science by testing parts

I ... I think we have a much different idea of what constitutes "repetitious". Anyway, at least one thing we agree on is that the science system as a whole should be overhauled, but that's a fundamental problem with how KSP's career mode was(n't) designed.

For starters, the whole heat system in KSP is fundamentally flawed in having more massive objects heat up faster, which is backwards to reality.

Clearly we're playing a different game because I have yet to see that in practice. Have you changed the conductivity of parts or something? Have any examples? Have you filed a bug report on that?

And in any case, I am firmly opposed to making any of these so-called "realism" features mandatory. They should be optional as difficulty settings.

The debug window and the New Game screen fulfill your desires here so I have no idea what you're going on about. From what I can gather you want the old placeholder aerodynamic system put back in? The option to use it? Why would any developer keep a placeholder in a game?

The rest of your post, well ... there's no accounting for taste, opinion, or creativity for that matter.

[Red Iron Crown]

For starters, the whole heat system in KSP is fundamentally flawed in having more massive objects heat up faster, which is backwards to reality. So that needs to be fixed first and foremost.

This has not been my experience in testing the heat system so far (outside of some edge cases where some parts have a different specific heat than the standard). Can you share some of the specific part combinations where you've observed this?

[Geschosskopf]

This has not been my experience in testing the heat system so far (outside of some edge cases where some parts have a different specific heat than the standard). Can you share some of the specific part combinations where you've observed this?

Clearly we're playing a different game because I have yet to see that in practice. Have you changed the conductivity of parts or something? Have any examples? Have you filed a bug report on that?

There is/was a whole thread in the add-on development topic on the internal workings of heat in KSP. The thing about more massive objects heating up faster was noted and discussed therein, and found to be backwards from reality. It is one of several reasons for the ridiculous, unrealistic overheating of the LV-N.

The debug window and the New Game screen fulfill your desires here so I have no idea what you're going on about. From what I can gather you want the old placeholder aerodynamic system put back in? The option to use it? Why would any developer keep a placeholder in a game?

Placeholder or not, the old "soup-o-sphere" was more in keeping with the underlying nature of the KSP universe as a whole and Kerbin in particular. It was certainly more realistic, FOR KERBIN and the universe KSP is set in, than anything resembling what we have here on Earth. Contrary to the opinion of most KSP players, "realism" does NOT mean "just like on Earth".

(from the wiki) Kerbin: mass = 5.2916793 E+22 kg, radius = 600km, volume = 9.047786842 E+17m^3, density = 58484.8 kg/m^3 = 58.49 g/cm^3

(from NASA) Earth: mass = 5.9726 E+24 kg, volume = 1.08321 E+21 m^3, density = 5513.8 kg/m^3 = 5.41 g/cm^3

So, Kerbin's average density is 10.6 times greater than Earth's. In fact, Kerbin ON AVERAGE is roughly 2.5 times as dense as osmium, the densest element naturally occurring on Earth (22.61 g/cm^3).

Therefore, the fundamental forces (neuclear strong and weak, gravity, and electromagtism) obviously behave very differently in the KSP universe than our own. This means that no elements on our periodic table can exist in the KSP universe, and vice versa. So Kerbin's atmosphere doesn't contain any of the gases we have and, given the insane average density of Kerbin, it's reasonable to expect that it's atmosphere should be quite dense as well. IOW, Kerbin really SHOULD have a "soup-o-sphere" to be internally consistent and REALISTIC (in the true sense of the word) to the laws of physics in the KSP universe.

You can also show Kerbin's atmosphere must be denser than Earth's by simple fluid stuff. Atmosphereic pressure at the surface is equal to the weight of the column of air above it. Both Kerbin and Earth have the same atmospheric pressure at MSL but Kerbin's atmosphere isn't as deep as Earth's. Therefore, to get the same weight in a shorter air column, Kerbin's atmosphere MUST be denser than Earth's, no matter what it's made of. Just how much denser it is depends on where you draw the line for the top of Earth's atmosphere, which is a matter of some debate, although it will always be above Kerbin's.

The only internally consistent, REALISTIC way to apply Earthly physics and aerodynamics to Kerbin is to bring Kerbin into our universe and put it under ALL the same rules we play by. In which case you're talking RSS. I certainly am NOT advocating RSS become the new stock standard, I'm just saying that's how much different the KSP universe is from our own. And that it is certainly not at all realistic, by the very laws of physics that the KSP realism-mongers so love, to put an Earth-like atmosphere on toy-size, ultra-dense Kerbin.

[Red Iron Crown]

There is/was a whole thread in the add-on development topic on the internal workings of heat in KSP. The thing about more massive objects heating up faster was noted and discussed therein, and found to be backwards from reality. It is one of several reasons for the ridiculous, unrealistic overheating of the LV-N.

Got a link to the relevant part of the discussion? As I said, that result doesn't line up with my testing, I'm curious to see how others tested differently.

As for the rest of your post, the position "realism must be 100% or else can be completely ignored" is silly. Realism is a spectrum, and different parts of the game mechanics sit at different points on that spectrum, they're more realistic where it matters and less so where it doesn't. Realistic flight mechanics are an important selling point for KSP, so much so that they're mentioned specifically in the game's description. Far fewer players care about planet densities and nuclear forces because the game doesn't advertise itself as a chemistry simulator or build-your-own-particle-accelerator.

[regex]

I certainly am NOT advocating RSS become the new stock standard

I would, it's just as much, if not more, fun.

And that it is certainly not at all realistic, by the very laws of physics that the KSP realism-mongers so love, to put an Earth-like atmosphere on toy-size, ultra-dense Kerbin.

Well, KSP clearly isn't meant to be realistic, so I think the new aero simulation fits it even better than the placeholder.

[KSK]

@Geschosskopf. As far as I recall, KSP is scaled down for convenience and gameplay reasons, so that getting to places doesn't take as long. After that, gravity, atmospheres and other systems are scaled more or less arbitrarily so that they work at least sort of how you'd expect them to from real life. And yes, I'm aware that there are a whole bunch of points where different players will disagree on how close to real life they are.

With that in mind, expecting a fully self-consistent Kerbal universe seems optimistic at best and appealing to that self consistency as the basis of an argument seems futile at best.

Back to the original post, first of all kudos to the Space Hippie for posting it, given his (?) previous posts on the topic and secondly - I generally agree with him. IMO, Career mode is still fairly simplistic as management/strategy games go but 1.0 has been a huge step forward and is much more fun to play now.

[tater]

Actually, scaling KSP up to maybe 3X makes the game far more fun. I played a number of RSS scalings (Kerbol system at 2x, 3.2x, 6.4x) in career, using FAR/DRE/etc, and stock parts (some stock alike, all made for stock though).

I think 3.2x would be ideal for stock, and it might solve some of the aero/reentry issues.

I find 1.0.2 contracts to be pretty odd right now. Too many rescue and tourism contracts, and I do not reliably see any "explore" contracts. Current save I got no Mun or Minmus explore contracts at all, for example.

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@Geschosskopf. As far as I recall, KSP is scaled down for convenience and gameplay reasons, so that getting to places doesn't take as long. After that, gravity, atmospheres and other systems are scaled more or less arbitrarily so that they work at least sort of how you'd expect them to from real life. And yes, I'm aware that there are a whole bunch of points where different players will disagree on how close to real life they are.

The arbitrary scaling is why reentry is not dangerous, and if you make it actually dangerous arbitrarily, then space planes will have a problem flying at all since 2km/s is not actually that fast.

Convenience is a non-issue, IMO, as we have time warp. A small rescale to 2-4x doesn't substantially slow the game down, and I think it might be possible to have dangerous reentry in there someplace, without killing space planes (for people who like them).

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I find 1.0.2 contracts to be pretty odd right now. Too many rescue and tourism contracts, and I do not reliably see any "explore" contracts. Current save I got no Mun or Minmus explore contracts at all, for example.

This is very true. I think the Programs suggestion earlier or categorizing and generating contracts per body would help that immensely. Maybe have a tab exclusively for tourism...

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... new "programs", such as a Mun program, a Minmus Program or a Duna Program. When you open a new program, you get first the "explore body" contract, then start getting other types of contracts. If you close a program for a certain body, you no longer get contracts for that planet.

I think this could work. It is a form of a preference system, that would not break the underlying mission type and prestige randomness. It could be implemented per-planet as the OP suggests, or, more broadly: inner vs outer planets.

I don't like having to pay for Kerbals. Where's the justification? They come with no skills so you haven't invested in training, and you can't teach them anything on the ground anyway.

This gave me an idea. In RPG's, NPC's you hire on later often come with some EXP and skills. No reason that couldn't be extended to KSP. Additionally, Squad has said that they are not done with this system. dV readouts were delayed for more work on Kerbal skills. Source: Reddit AmA