Multi-Player - "Play it forward"

[mattinoz]

One option for both single and multi-player I'd like to see and understand it might need a multi-player server to make it happen.

"Play it Forward" - Mission planning by the seat of your pants.

Basically decouple craft time from base time so a craft can warp off in the future.

Then we can play out a whole mission in a focused way like mission planning until the craft returns to Kerbal SOI, then let the pre-recorded mission play-out while we go off and take care of keeping the program cashed up or head out on other adventures.

Obviously events in the future wouldn't register at the home base till time catches up, so I'd have to wait for science and contract rewards to trickle through. Also once events in the mission hit the home base they become set in stone and you can't revert.

Also interacting with another craft or planet would delete any future timelines either and start a new combined one for those two craft.

[Hobbes Novakoff]

This would be kind of cool, but I don't feel that it's necessary. What is far more needed is an alarm clock system. In KSP, missions take months or years, most of which is idly drifting through space, interspersed with a few minutes, at most, that require the player. There's virtually no chance that you would have to be attending to two things at the same time on separate missions. If we do the math, and we assume that the distribution of player input times is random (A bit of a spherical-cow assumption), and that each of those instances takes five minutes, and you have say 50 instances (A quite large number, really) per in-game year, then the chance of having two events at the same time is: 5.3127076511630764472152467433303981261085575475531642760906042083334359×10^-8. In other words, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really unlikely.

Edited May 22, 2015 by Hobbes Novakoff

[mattinoz]

I'm not going to disagree regarding alarm clock and yes the chance of two events needing to happen at the same time are pretty much non existent. Kerbal alarm clock is an essential mod to me.

Still as as you say the time scale is vast and events in that scale are rare which to me means if you focus on one mission at stay with it and warp those empty bits of time you neglect the space centre. If you keep an eye on the space centre and getting funds up to target the next interplanetary window by the time you come back to the first mission and its year long drift through space it could be days or weeks depending how much real life has gotten in the way.

To to me splitting the time would allow us to wear two hats. CEO of our space program looking after making funds.

mission director to focus on a goal. Without having to wear them both at the same time.

Which to me would make the game more accessible to a more casual player.

[Tex_NL]

...

Basically decouple craft time from base time so a craft can warp off in the future.

Then we can play out a whole mission in a focused way like mission planning until the craft returns to Kerbal SOI, then let the pre-recorded mission play-out while we go off and take care of keeping the program cashed up or head out on other adventures.

Obviously events in the future wouldn't register at the home base till time catches up, so I'd have to wait for science and contract rewards to trickle through. Also once events in the mission hit the home base they become set in stone and you can't revert.

...

The trip from Kerbin to Duna takes three to four real life months. Then several months before you get a transfer window and another few months to travel back home. The total time gets close to a year, it not longer.

A week to get results from Minmus? Maybe. But waiting for months or years for the other planets? Don't count on it any time soon.

[EdusacconBR]

or a teleport like warp, instead of warping, you would teleport to the part of the orbit you want

[mattinoz]

The trip from Kerbin to Duna takes three to four real life months. Then several months before you get a transfer window and another few months to travel back home. The total time gets close to a year, it not longer.

A week to get results from Minmus? Maybe. But waiting for months or years for the other planets? Don't count on it any time soon.

I'm not suggesting base time is linked to real time just that craft could warp ahead of the Kerbin time.

You'd still be able to leisurely warp the Kerbin time ahead to suit yourself and even catch up quickly with your craft if you need the results of that mission for the next one.