Ideas about a campaign to go with career mode in future versions?

[herbal space program]

Hello all,

As one of the many here who have played this game more or less into the ground during the pre-release phase, I don't think I'm alone in feeling a little bit let down that now it's finally 1.0, and although the new aero and re-entry have been fun to play with for a while, it really doesn't feel like the game between 0.90 and 1.0 has offered us much of anything new to do. To me, it feels like what is really missing from the game as it stands is some sort of overarching campaign-like goal, a victory condition as it were, that goes beyond just unlocking the whole tech tree. Right now the contracts system offers a number of basic skills-building hoops to jump through, and for a new player I imagine these offer a pretty decent game play experience, but for us more experienced players I feel like it gets pretty ho-hum pretty quickly. At the same time, I feel like there is this gigantic solar system they've built, but it's basically unpopulated with anything that makes one spot on the surface of a particular body much more interesting than another. So what I feel the devs really need to focus on next is giving us some reason to explore the Kerbolar system other than accumulating science points in order to develop capabilities for which there is no ultimate goal.

My idea for how to go about this would be to have the various exploration contracts that come up yield evidence of the existence of alien artifacts, which can be analyzed in situ for some amount of science, but must be recovered to yield all their secrets. These artifacts, getting ever remoter and more difficult to recover, would form a chain of clues that, together with sensor scans, etc. generated by the contracts system, would lead the player to some ultimate boss artifact than when fully exploited would allow for the construction of an interstellar drive. The ultimate goal would be to build some sort of mega-ship containing this drive and a whole bunch of Kerbals and use it to get to a new solar system, the exploration of which would form the basis for a later version of the game. Science would thus not be only for acquiring techs to build ordinary space ships, but to solve the mystery of the aliens and to build the final goal mega space ship and launch it to another star system. I think that compared to what they have already accomplished, building that sort of content would actually not be that much work for the folks at Squad, although I think they would have to bring some new people on board who are more specialized in that sort of game development.

Anyway, that's my basic vision of how this game could really go to the next level. I would love it if others out there would add to this thread by describing theirs!

[arkie87]

Hello all,

As one of the many here who have played this game more or less into the ground during the pre-release phase, I don't think I'm alone in feeling a little bit let down that now it's finally 1.0, and although the new aero and re-entry have been fun to play with for a while, it really doesn't feel like the game between 0.90 and 1.0 has offered us much of anything new to do. To me, it feels like what is really missing from the game as it stands is some sort of overarching campaign-like goal, a victory condition as it were, that goes beyond just unlocking the whole tech tree. Right now the contracts system offers a number of basic skills-building hoops to jump through, and for a new player I imagine these offer a pretty decent game play experience, but for us more experienced players I feel like it gets pretty ho-hum pretty quickly. At the same time, I feel like there is this gigantic solar system they've built, but it's basically unpopulated with anything that makes one spot on the surface of a particular body much more interesting than another. So what I feel the devs really need to focus on next is giving us some reason to explore the Kerbolar system other than accumulating science points in order to develop capabilities for which there is no ultimate goal.

My idea for how to go about this would be to have the various exploration contracts that come up yield evidence of the existence of alien artifacts, which can be analyzed in situ for some amount of science, but must be recovered to yield all their secrets. These artifacts, getting ever remoter and more difficult to recover, would form a chain of clues that, together with sensor scans, etc. generated by the contracts system, would lead the player to some ultimate boss artifact than when fully exploited would allow for the construction of an interstellar drive. The ultimate goal would be to build some sort of mega-ship containing this drive and a whole bunch of Kerbals and use it to get to a new solar system, the exploration of which would form the basis for a later version of the game. Science would thus not be only for acquiring techs to build ordinary space ships, but to solve the mystery of the aliens and to build the final goal mega space ship and launch it to another star system. I think that compared to what they have already accomplished, building that sort of content would actually not be that much work for the folks at Squad, although I think they would have to bring some new people on board who are more specialized in that sort of game development.

Anyway, that's my basic vision of how this game could really go to the next level. I would love it if others out there would add to this thread by describing theirs!

I think most of this is beyond the scope of what you could ever hope squad to do (so dont get your hopes up).

However, i do agree with some points/fundamental issues with the game:

(1) there is no clear victory condition.

(2) exploring planets/moons gets boring since they are all basically the same (see

)

(3) rovers are pointless (other than fun) since (a) on small planets/moons where you could conceivably drive to new biomes, you have no traction and its easier to just hop around ( on large planets/moons you arent going to be driving to more than two biomes

(4) mining is not really needed

(5) satellites are not really needed

However, you got me thinking. I like the idea of finding and recovering artifacts, like you mentioned. These artifacts could be placed on random planets (or one could be placed on each body, though this would be hard since one would be placed on Eve...), and would either have to be spotted visually (they could be their own part that is REALLY shiny) or using a satellite to locate it. I think doing this basically resolves all of these issues (and it should be easy to implement with a mod):

(1) The objects would always be placed randomly. This resolves issue #2 since it gives you something new to look for each time you play. I think this is a good compromise since squad cannot make planets themselves more interesting, since it would take forever to create all the terrain etc... (all planets/moons must be procedurally generated).

(2) It resolves issue #3 since once you spot the artifact you must recover it. Unless you can target land perfectly and grab the part with a sky crane, you are going to need a rover to drive over and pick it up.

(3) it resolves #4 since it gives a purpose to mining, since you might have to fly around the planet/moon a bit until you can find the object

(4) it resolve #5 by giving purpose to satellites which can locate said artifacts (if you enable that option or maybe that is only unlocked later in the tech tree)

(5) I dont think finding them shoudl give you science boosts. But i do propose, as a victory condition, bringing all of them back to one mothership

In all, i think you might be able to hope for someone to write a mode for this. It would be relatively simple.

You would need:

one SHINY part to find-- the artifact

a dll to randomly place them at the start of a new game

a UI to tell you how many you have found

perhaps a satellite component to scan (which would be much more complicated).

EDIT: The more i think about it, the more i think the shiny artifacts should contain a new resource called <insert something clever>. Each artifact, depending on where it is (what planet/moon) etc... will have different amounts of it. Once you collect 100 you win the game. There could be more than one per planet (to make them easier to find visually).

What do you think?

Edited May 19, 2015 by arkie87

[Lord Aurelius]

The idea of a campaign mode based around anomalies/artifacts has actually been mentioned many times already (and I think it's a great idea for the record, especially if the locations were randomized for each new game). I definitely agree that career mode is missing a goal to strive for (beyond the tech tree) and that the planets by and large are quite boring once you actually get to them.

The closest thing I've seen to the artifacts system you're proposing is to use Contract Configurator with the Anomaly Surveyor contracts and ScanSat so you have to scan to find the anomalies. That combination is actually quite fun to play with and really gives incentive to go out there and explore.

Edited May 19, 2015 by Lord Aurelius

[arkie87]

The idea of a campaign mode based around anomalies/artifacts has actually been mentioned many times already (and I think it's a great idea for the record).

The closest thing I've seen to this is to use Contract Configurator with the Anomaly Surveyor contracts and ScanSat so you have to scan to find the anomalies. That combination is actually quite fun to play with and really gives incentive to go out there and explore.

That is similar, except the anomalies are actual anomalies placed there by squad, not randomly generated parts, which have to be found. So replayability is still not there.

[basic.syntax]

I'd like to see a campaign someday; the tutorial missions would be a good jumping off point, as campaigns usually start the player with very basic activities, and build up from there. For that reason, "orientation" missions would have to be skip-able. Many of the existing contract scenarios could be fleshed out with storylines, to link them together. Completion could reward you with free parts, a limited number of uses, from tech you haven't researched yet.

I think there's a chance for an official campaign... next year maybe. If 1.1 and 1.2 do well, they will have to come up with something for 1.3

[michaelsteele3]

You make the campaign. I personally don't see much reason to put in one.

[spacenut1337]

The way I see it, Career mode is the only thing giving relevance to rovers. The data gathering contracts are a perfect fit for them.

[Sky_walker]

Didn't NovaSilisko plan to add sort-of campaign to KSP with SSTV signals and some other stuff to discover and explore on a planets?

[edit] for those who don't know: he is a former dev, probably best known for having plans to add second gas gigant into KSP along with cryovolcanos on eeloo (link)

Edited May 19, 2015 by Sky_walker

[arkie87]

The way I see it, Career mode is the only thing giving relevance to rovers. The data gathering contracts are a perfect fit for them.

But you have to drive for ages...and ages

[spacenut1337]

But you have to drive for ages...and ages

With physics time warp, a well-designed rover, and decent driving skills it's not too bad. But yeah, you gotta be in the mood to cruise around. I usually don't do more than one of these contracts per celestial body.

[herbal space program]

(1) The objects would always be placed randomly. This resolves issue #2 since it gives you something new to look for each time you play. I think this is a good compromise since squad cannot make planets themselves more interesting, since it would take forever to create all the terrain etc... (all planets/moons must be procedurally generated).

(2) It resolves issue #3 since once you spot the artifact you must recover it. Unless you can target land perfectly and grab the part with a sky crane, you are going to need a rover to drive over and pick it up.

(3) it resolves #4 since it gives a purpose to mining, since you might have to fly around the planet/moon a bit until you can find the object

(4) it resolve #5 by giving purpose to satellites which can locate said artifacts (if you enable that option or maybe that is only unlocked later in the tech tree)

(5) I dont think finding them shoudl give you science boosts. But i do propose, as a victory condition, bringing all of them back to one mothership

In all, i think you might be able to hope for someone to write a mode for this. It would be relatively simple.

You would need:

one SHINY part to find-- the artifact

a dll to randomly place them at the start of a new game

a UI to tell you how many you have found

perhaps a satellite component to scan (which would be much more complicated).

EDIT: The more i think about it, the more i think the shiny artifacts should contain a new resource called <insert something clever>. Each artifact, depending on where it is (what planet/moon) etc... will have different amounts of it. Once you collect 100 you win the game. There could be more than one per planet (to make them easier to find visually).

What do you think?

I think those are all great suggestions. Finding interesting stuff is the perfect way both to make the planetary surfaces less boring and to give some greater sense of purpose to the exploration contracts. Also, as to your point abut the surfaces having to be procedurally generated, that is of course true, but they could still do a lot more with procedural terrain. How about some rivers on Kerbin, for example? Also, the various artifacts you have to hunt for could come with their own more elaborately designed terrain overlays that could be procedurally integrated into random locations within certain terrain types on whatever body. That way, they could be in a different location every game but still have more depth to the terrain modeling than the generic procedural landscape. As to what resource the alien artifacts might have associated with them, I think that it could perhaps be a special sort of science that allows you to acquire special alien techs with special capabilities. Things for example that would let you create super-efficient engines or autonomous probes to search for resources, etc. The ultimate FTL engine could be some gigantic thing that would be challenging even to boost into LKO, and around which you have to build a great big ship with lots of specialized resources, etc. on board. It would be something like building the space ship in Civ, except you'd actually get to fly this one!

- - - Updated - - -

Didn't NovaSilisko plan to add sort-of campaign to KSP with SSTV signals and some other stuff to discover and explore on a planets?

[edit] for those who don't know: he is a former dev, probably best known for having plans to add second gas gigant into KSP along with cryovolcanos on eeloo (link)

While I am in awe of all the amazing things that various modders have accomplished, I think that a real campaign, with the sort of depth that would create a truly immersive game play experience, would ultimately have to be implemented by Squad. As they have done in the past, however, they could always take things produced by modders to use as a basis for creating such a campaign.

[Sky_walker]

While I am in awe of all the amazing things that various modders have accomplished, I think that a real campaign, with the sort of depth that would create a truly immersive game play experience, would ultimately have to be implemented by Squad. As they have done in the past, however, they could always take things produced by modders to use as a basis for creating such a campaign.

I don't know what it has to deal with my post, but we are in a total agreement

[edit] actually I suspect you think that "Didn't NovaSilisko plan to add" means "Didn't NovaSilisko plan to create a mod that adds" while in fact I meant him adding this into KSP itself, but he left the team before implementing any of this other plans.

[herbal space program]

I don't know what it has to deal with my post, but we are in a total agreement

[edit] actually I suspect you think that "Didn't NovaSilisko plan to add" means "Didn't NovaSilisko plan to create a mod that adds" while in fact I meant him adding this into KSP itself, but he left the team before implementing any of this other plans.

Yes, that's exactly what I thought. I guess I didn't read that second bit too good. Anyway, it's good to know that this sort of idea was at least on the table at Squad at some point. Now that they have the sandbox more or less finished and a rudimentary career/campaign mode in place, I think that Squad pretty much has to go in this type of direction if they want to turn KSP into a full-fledged franchise. Either that I guess, or they have to turn it into a Minecraft-style multiplayer sandbox universe, with users acquiring plots of land to develop within the vast spaces on all the different planetary surfaces. I guess there's no reason they couldn't do both, but I think the former would be significantly less difficult. Either way, I think they have a whole lot of people out there like me who would be happy to plunk down another $25 or whatever to see this incredible canvas they have created get populated with some new content.

Edited May 19, 2015 by herbal space program