Why is there a limit to the amount of parts you can use per vessel in early career mode?

[Wanderfound]

The part count limit is artificial, but it isn't hard for an experienced player to deal with and it's a useful efficiency guide for the novices.

I like how more of the tutorial is being blended into the game. The "science from Kerbin" starter contract shows the newbies how to collect science, and introduces the idea that it's to be found everywhere. The rendezvous, dock and flyby contracts nudge the player towards learning the skills needed for exploration. Rescue-from-Mun contracts teach precision landing. And the partcount/weight limits guide them towards an understanding of efficient design and the value of payload minimisation.

[Engineer of Stuff]

The part limit is to encourage a trend of efficiency and to encourage innovation - sure it sounds counter-intuitive at first, what with innovation being stifled by restriction, but it's not necessary to construct a 500 part monstrosity when 50 parts with a thoughtful layout can do the job better and with much higher framerates.

You also get to lift the restriction to 255 parts in short order. Which is plenty.

Yes! Everybody should stop complaining! It is helping you.

[Arsonik]

Foaming at the mouth over something that is actually rather trivial when you think about it is a bit overboard. Sometimes I wonder from your posts that you might be taking this game way too seriously.

Just wanted to point out I've read the whole thread up to here and you sir seem to be finding aggression where there is none. I think you owe regex an appology.

[Mr. Speed]

I actually think it is a nice way to limit craft complexity. It also gives a reason to unlock the bigger parts.

As it seems a lot of people disagree with that idea, maybe an alternate way of implementing this limit could be an increase in craft cost every time you exceed the limit. This way there is no real limit, but still an incentive to build more efficient and cheaper until you get the money to upgrade your VAB/unlock bigger parts.

The cost increase should of course be of the complete craft, since a cost increase in part would just mean you attached the cheapest parts last.

something like: total cost = craft cost*(1.1^number of parts exceeding limit)

Would give you some more room to play with, and could mean your existing craft can be built cheaper in a more sophisticated VAB or SPH. (that would actually make sense now I think of it).

[ArmchairGravy]

My strategy is to upgrade the Astronaut complex first so I can do EVA's. Use the science from EVA's to unlock larger tanks. Upgrade the launchpad, mission control, and the tracking station. Then upgrade the VAB. 30 parts using the FTL-800's will get you return orbits of Mun and Minmus, and a lot of science from EVA reports. Upgrading the VAB is what I consider the transition to mid-game.

[AbacusWizard]

Part count limits can sometimes make for an interesting design challenge, but combined with the teeny tiny fuel tanks available at first, it makes it really difficult to get any reasonable amount of ∆v in the early game.

It also occurs to me that what constitutes "one part" is very arbitrary. "One part" might be a single uniform metal bar, or "one part" might be an entire laboratory including a life support system and many experiments.

[Murph]

The part count limit really doesn't bother me. It makes sense in as much as a practical mechanic to limit you to low complexity craft until you upgrade, which absolutely is a valid thing to tie into the upgrade system. Pushing you towards doing a lot with a little is a very good thing for learning the game.

The one that doesn't make any sense to me is the action groups not being available until level 3. That just feels very forced and fake, adding something to the system because they felt they had to add something and not because it made good sense to do so. Level 2's part limit should be much lower, as it's effectively unlimited at 255, at least for early contract missions, and action groups should be completely removed from the upgrade system (and not replaced with anything unless something can be found which actually does make sense).

[Aragosnat]

Yeah. It does seem a bit weird to have a part count limit. When the hight and width limit would work just as fine for the VAB and not the landing pad(well mass and width for the pad, as any part off the pad should sink into the ground).

I do agree the part count does teach new and well as some old players how to build efficent crafts. But, frustrating when trying to build a probe lander with legs, enough solar panel coverage, batteries, science gathering parts, fuel, chutes, anntennas. Those parts alone eat up a large potion of the count depending on if you toss in multiples of the goo container, science jr and non pressure/temp readers as they only need 1 per biome.

The custom and basic controlls I do agree feels a bnit odd that once we get a bigger hangar they suddenly appear. Some of the controls like gear, lights, and brakes should be available from the get go. Part of me feels like the basic controlls should be more a R&D thing then a VAB/SPH size limitation as you are reaserching the technology to make such custom controls possable. That is just me.

[FlowerChild]

I'm honestly undecided on this one. On one hand, it does seem like an artificial constraint. On the other hand, during play it's lead to some interesting decision making that I can't really debate against.

I think it might be justified thematically in terms of Kerbal engineering only being capable of handling a certain degree of complexity before stuff begins to fall apart...maybe

The limitations on actions groups though...yeah, that's just lame. I really don't think a pure GUI convenience like that should be in any way associated with in-game progression. It's basically just forcing the player to have to suffer through right-clicking on parts to access the various menu items until they research/build something, which is an extremely odd blurring of the lines between in and out of game.

Why are the Kerbals aware of and studying the buttons I can press as a player? I dunno, but I think it's beginning to make me a little nervous

Edited May 24, 2015 by FlowerChild

[Hotaru]

I don't like it. Honestly, it doesn't limit where I can go--that's more a question of mass than part count--but it limits what I can do once I get there. I generally find before I upgrade the VAB I have to sacrifice things like science instruments, antennas, extra batteries, solar panels, and so on, and all that does is mean I have to make two or three flights to get the science I could've gotten in one--making the early-career-mode grind just a little bit worse.

Same for action groups. It's not like not having action groups actually prevents me from doing anything, at least not with early-game ships--all it does is mean that I have to either right click or rearrange stages on the fly if I want to, say, abort.

Both just feel like arbitrary gameplay limitations imposed to give me an artificial reason to upgrade the VAB/SPH, whereas most of the other building upgrades make a little more sense. Not sure what I'd add in their place, though, to be honest. Maybe move the size restriction from the pad/runway to the VAB/SPH, and keep only the mass restrictions for the pad/runway. Still plenty of reason to upgrade, makes realistic sense (VAB can only hold so big a rocket, pad can only support so much weight), doesn't feel arbitrary.

Thanks Lord Aurelius for the link, by the way, I did not know about that mod & will definitely be trying it out next time I start a new career save! (Ironically I'll actually probably use it to increase building costs by about a factor of 10, so I can turn fund penalties way down and have civilized Kerbal hiring costs for a change. Unless it lets me adjust those too...)

[pvtnum11]

I'm okay with it. It's pretty trivial to upgrade the VAB for that 255-part limit. No, I usually run into the 18-ton Launchpad limitation first, but the Pad is even easier to upgrade than the VAB. The new auto-compete contracts for certain records makes unlocking both VAB and the Pad almost a foregone conclusion after just a suborbital hop. It's a non-issue for my long-term plans.

[PrivateFlip]

On hard I did got stuck in a bit of a grind due to the limit because I couldn't do a manned return to the mun with the 30 parts limit. First it was fun to get creative within the limit and I directed science to bigger fuel tanks. However at some point I realized I still couldn't make it and I had now expanded all the easy science before getting solar panels. This put probes for one way mun missions for easy science and satellite mission for easy funds out of reach. When I was already seriously considering starting a new game on moderate, I spotted a contract for a launchpad test for the KD25 solid rocket booster. Replacing the triple RT10 for my most efficient rocket whit three of these I made an orbit around the mun and unlocked just enough science for the solar panels. From there one things started moving forward again.

Next time I won't waste my science on bigger fuel tanks so I can go to the Mun without the VAB upgrade because I know I can't make it. Instead I'll direct more science towards solar panels so the satellite contracts for some decent funds are available.

However based on this experience I can see how the high cost of the VAB upgrade can put a player who is playing on a difficult level at the edge of the its ability against a "grind hill". I also suspect this is more essential to the annoyance towards the part limit than part limit being realistic or not (don't think it's weird you need a bigger VAB to build more complex ships.)

[dansmithers]

"Artificial constraint"?

Obviously the engineers are running of drawing paper, did you think that stuff grows on...

Oh yeah, right.

[pvtnum11]

Maybe a different type of constraint for the VAB: You need Tier 2 VAB to play with 2.5-meter parts or any part that weighs more than a certain amount - say five tons a part. Y'know, overhead bridge crane weight handling limits or something. Tier 3 lets you use teh 3.75-meter parts and/or allows you to use any single part, regardless of mass.

[Lord Aurelius]

Maybe a different type of constraint for the VAB: You need Tier 2 VAB to play with 2.5-meter parts or any part that weighs more than a certain amount - say five tons a part. Y'know, overhead bridge crane weight handling limits or something. Tier 3 lets you use teh 3.75-meter parts and/or allows you to use any single part, regardless of mass.

That would be a much more reasonable limitation than what we have now. The only issue I see with that is that rockets aren't fueled until they're on the pad, and there are very few parts that actually have a significant amount of mass once you take all the resources out.

I think the dimension (and launchpad weight) limitations alone are enough at this point if the part count were removed, with the new aero your rockets have to follow a certain shape already, and that limits your total dV without needing to limit parts.

As others have said, a part limitation doesn't really make sense when 1 part covers everything from a single strut (that itself is there as a workaround for weirdness in the physics engine) to a large command pod with builtin crew capacity, batteries, reaction wheels and monoprop storage.

[PrivateFlip]

I like the idea of tying the VAB size to the part dimension makes a lot of sense: larger VAB for larger parts. Doing away with the part limit entirely wouldn't be necessary. If it was upped from thirty to maybe fifty a lot of the complaint would go away, because you would likely have a much bigger revenue stream to finance the upgrade when you start approaching the limit.

[pvtnum11]

Yes, a 30-to-50 part increase would alleviate a bunch of problems, but would be sort of a band-aid. Not that I really mind the 30-part limit as it sits now, but I wouldn't mind seeing it resolved in a more sensible manner, either.

[temporalExile]

I'd have to disagree with everyone who is against part count limits. When I first started playing this game, most of the craft that I built were 400+ part montrosities...

And this was I'd even made it to the mun.

My mun rocket was a 11 stage 600 part monstrosity.

My most recent mun rocket for career had an Apollo style lander, and had just under 150 parts.

I would be a lot further along right now if I had had those restrictions earlier