Thoughts on 1.x Career Mode

[Alshain]

What what?

You won't find them listed as "scientist" on a ISS roster. More like this guy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_Chang_Díaz

Engineer and physicist, helped in the construction of the ISS and also studied high energy plasmas.

They don't have lab assistants in space. Nobody is going to fly a lab assistant up there just to clean beakers.

I know what a Mission Specialist is. What does that have to do with the KSP classes? Why did you quote my post?

[mikegarrison]

Why did you quote my post?

I think there is a miscommunication going on here on both sides of the discussion. This forum software maybe cuts the quotes too much -- I wasn't responding to your post per se, I was responding to the discussion your post was part of, and yours was the last item in the discussion when I replied.

Edited July 6, 2015 by mikegarrison

[Guest]

I think there is a miscommunication going on here on both sides of the discussion. This forum software maybe cuts the quotes too much -- I wasn't responding to your post per se, I was responding to the discussion your post was part of, and yours was the last item in the discussion when I replied.

The forum software removes inner quotes, likely to prevent pyramid-quoting. You just have to add them back in manually.

[tranenturm]

As a new player, I don't mind the career mode. I play on normal, and don't find things too grindy. I ignore (or dismiss, if I need new ones) any random missions that don't suit my purpose. I concentrate on what I call "the next step" missions. So I do the early get into space stuff. Then Mun missions start to appear so I do those. Then Minimus, start to appear and I start to do those. I get the advanced building relatively quickly to hold unlimited missions, so I have a Duna mission waiting around for me when I decide to go there. I know the game doesn't always offer the exact mission I want, so I'll do the occasional "side mission" to practice a particular skill, or what have you. But mostly the game is serving up relevant missions. I'm done with the Mun except for a base, and moving on to Minimus. I have no problems with cash, and am a little science shy of where I want to be, but I know I'll get that from the Minimus missions. I'm no where near short on cash, so if I can skip certain missions (like just going directly to Minimus rather than walking through: flyby, orbit, return, etc...) if I feel like it.

I'm okay with science coming from getting to and exploring various spaces. I rationalize this as my country putting more tech resources into my operation as I achieve fundamental science goals. IE, "oh the KSP, reached the Mun, let's support them to the next step by provided engineering breakthroughs". So no, I don't see bringing back a Mun-rock as helping me DIRECTLY build a larger rocket. But because I did, the support network for the KSP puts the research into developing the techs.

My mine desire for Kerbal career mode would be a story-line aspect. Replicating the current early records model for all systems would be nice as well. But really, I'd like to see more in-game reasons in Stock for launching things. So things like some of the mods like satellite network. Or space manufacturing. Stuff like that. At the moment my motivations are exploration and ISRU to help exploration. So either add layers to those motivations like space satellites, or add space development goals like mining and manufacturing.

[JDCollie]

I strongly dislike the 1.x scientist's ability to reset experiments. It is useful, (and I make use of it shamelessly) but can't deny it is broken. Personally, I would like to see:

1. Removal of Scientist's "restore experiment" ability - It allows a single mission to do what used to take five to ten before 1.0. It also makes MPLs essentially irrelevant, just as the OP describes, and like MPLs, dangit.
   
2. Multiple experiment samples - As a player moves up the experiment oriented nodes in the tech tree, it should not only unlock new experiments but also upgrade the older ones to be able to take more samples before needing to be reset by an MPL.
   
3. Reduction in MPL processing time for data - processing that 500 data, even with a pair of good scientists, takes an unreasonably long time. Unless you're playing with the Kerbal Construction Time mod, it is entirely possible to have run a half dozen missions before the data from even the first experiment in the MPL finishes processing. That's dumb.
   
4. Greater MPL data storage capacity - If I can fit twelve experiments on my vessel that is half the size of the MPL, then why can I only store the data from two of those experiments in that 3.5 ton paperweight?
   

Basically, I really like the gameplay that emerges from MPL usage, but the Scientist ability and the current design of the MPL itself both discourage the player from using them. I like to see that changed.

[Laie]

1. Kerbal Recruiting/Hiring, Classes, Skills, and Experience

Sure, you can make it so every Kerbal can fix rover wheels but a "pilot" with science and repair skills can't reset Goo experiments or build stuff with KIS because he's a "pilot", not a "scientist" or "engineer".

I only quote the line that resonates the most with me ("skill" rather than "classes" would be much superior), but agree to the whole paragraph.

2. Tech Tree

Again, full ACK.

3. Contracts

By and large, I'm content. I like how there's always a number of lesser contracts available, often these combine nicely into a mission. I really wish tourism was less erratic, though.

4. Mobile Processing Lab

By and large, I like it. I still like to collect my results in triplicate and now have a three-pod lander (and really wish there was a wider variety of stackable pods -- cockpits just have their exit in the wrong place). Balance-wise, they're not off: one lab can create about 500 science before the first Duna transfer comes up, and the effort is comparable to getting the same amount from Munar landings.

What I don't like is the micromanagment / babysitting. I have a lab full of science, it's three years to return from Jool, I'm wearing sunglasses. Why do I have to leave timewarp every so often, upsetting my trajectory? And don't even get me started about the cookie clicker aspect of actually running a lab.

[mikegarrison]

What I don't like is the micromanagment / babysitting. I have a lab full of science, it's three years to return from Jool, I'm wearing sunglasses. Why do I have to leave timewarp every so often, upsetting my trajectory? And don't even get me started about the cookie clicker aspect of actually running a lab.

Yeah, I think they were so worried about the lab being overpowered that they put a few too many silly restrictions on it. That's a minor balance issue, though.

[Kagame]

Contracts

The initial world record height and distant contracts are great; The same system should be used for all the flyby, explore and return from contracts available.

These also represent one of the best ways to control game progression in terms of science and reputation points.

This is exactly what I was thinking. It's too much of a PITA to have to go back to the Space Center after doing a flyby of the Mun to accept the contract to make an orbit of the Mun and then orbit the Mun and then accept the contract to return from Mun orbit, and then return from Mun orbit, and then launch a completely separate rocket to actually land on the Mun.

[oversoul]

1. Kerbal Recruiting/Hiring, Classes, Skills, and Experience

Also, no matter how the rest of Kerbal systems end up, the whole way of recruiting Kerbals needs to be redone. The hiring cost is just ridiculous (soon approaching the price of a Jool mothership), for which you get a totally unskilled Kerbal. Even worse, you have no control over the class and stats of the applicants, which is bothersome if you need an engineer but none have applied, and this is exacerbated by the inability to dismiss applicants you don't want so that better ones might show up later.

Honestly this part of the game feels so broken to me that I just "manipulate" the contract system to pull stranded Kerbals out of orbit.

The fact that you say they are "adjusting" other parts of the whole crew 'design' scares the BeeGee's out of me. Yuck. *shudder*

4. Mobile Processing Lab

What is that? lol (/sarc)

Edited July 6, 2015 by oversoul

[Geschosskopf]

The fact that you say they are "adjusting" other parts of the whole crew 'design' scares the BeeGee's out of me. Yuck. *shudder*

Yup, I'm surprised there isn't more buzz about this in the forums. Specifically, they say they're "adding more pilot skills". OH NO!!!!

I thought we already went through this and decided it was a bad idea, so Squad didn't do it. And thank the Kraken! Seriously, what in the world CAN a pilot do other than operate SAS or point in a given direction. Anything beyond that and you start hosing up physics. Like only letting engines operate at their rated Isp and thrust if you have an experienced pilot--things are worse than advertised for anybody else and probes. Egad, that wouold be a disaster. So fortunately we dodged that bullet, but now Squad's doing something with "more pilot skills" again........

The current uselessness of pilots, and the impossibility of making them useful without hosing up the entire rest of the game, is the clearest example I can think of for why the whole class system just needs to be knocked in the head and buried in an unmarked grave at midnight. I will say it was a good idea that didn't work, but it doesn't work and can't be made to work. This is why I advocate (in that other thread) junking the whole named class system. Let all Kerbals know how to hit the T key on the instrument panel and then just pick whatever skills the player thinks he needs at the moment.

[tater]

1. Kerbal Recruiting/Hiring, Classes, Skills, and Experience

Agree.

2. Tech Tree

Agree, it's gotten somewhat worse, but the entire paradigm is wrong, anyway.

3. Contracts

The contracts are nearly universally awful, full stop.

They never cease to feel random, and stupid. Here's the thing, contracts should be generated randomly for replay interest, but they should FEEL scripted in the context of your career. Meaning they feel connected, and make sense in sequence retroactively. A progression, in other words, though it need not be the same every time by any stretch of the imagination, just sensibly connected.

Even within the broken science --> tech paradigm written in stone, everything about stock contracts is a mess, there is almost nothing redeeming.

[Edax]

Contracts need better progression. Their pretty fun in the beginning. Like trying to flyby the mun with no maneuver nodes, no solar panels and no sas. It was a fun interesting challenge that felt like something would have reflected reality early on during the real life spacerace. But other times it's frustrating, like getting the "Get a space station orbit in Duna contract" after I've already built my Duna spacecraft in orbit around Kerbin (thus making it ineligible). It's weird seeing 2 star contracts to land tourists on the mun when you yourself haven't even landed an astronaut there.

I like the tech tree as it is. It eased me into the game mechanics and taught me how to do more with less. I just wish there were more

I think the MPL needs work. It makes sense that you can gain additional science by gathering soil/rock samples from Kerbin or the Mun and testing them in a lab in space. But temperature data? Eva reports? "Bill triped over on his space walk? QUICK GET MY ELYMER FLASK!" How is a spacelab turning this into science? I feel like MPL should run science equipment continuously in order to gain science, like a lab on the surface of the mun constantly scanning seismic data can perpetually produce science data. I feel as though labs should act like science harvesters, with their output dictated by their location (orbit, landed on other planets/moons), rather then function as Science recycle bins. That way your encouraged to put labs in difficult places, and be rewarded for the challenge.

Edited July 7, 2015 by Edax

[basic.syntax]

Yup, I'm surprised there isn't more buzz about this in the forums. Specifically, they say they're "adding more pilot skills". OH NO!!!!

I thought we already went through this and decided it was a bad idea, so Squad didn't do it. And thank the Kraken! Seriously, what in the world CAN a pilot do other than operate SAS or point in a given direction. Anything beyond that and you start hosing up physics. Like only letting engines operate at their rated Isp and thrust if you have an experienced pilot--things are worse than advertised for anybody else and probes. Egad, that wouold be a disaster. So fortunately we dodged that bullet, but now Squad's doing something with "more pilot skills" again........

Where is that pilot fear coming from? The quote I have seen does not mention pilots. They want to add features to Engineers, so they can see craft dV, and some unspecified other thing(s). Plus, Scientists are supposed to gain some unspecified other thing(s).

- - - Updated - - -

... I feel like MPL should run science equipment continuously in order to gain science, like a lab on the surface of the mun constantly scanning seismic data can perpetually produce science data. I feel as though labs should act like science harvesters, with their output dictated by their location (orbit, landed on other planets/moons), rather then function as Science recycle bins. That way your encouraged to put labs in difficult places, and be rewarded for the challenge.

You have some interesting ideas here, for more situational-based science. I just wanted to mention that the system does quietly reward you with a bonus, for installing science, while landed, in the biome it is gathered in. I think that meets you halfway Check out this thread for more info.

[Anglave]

I date from the 0.17 era, played a considerable amount in the 0.24 era, and have played 1.0.2 and 1.0.4 fairly extensively.

1. Kerbal Recruiting/Hiring, Classes, Skills, and Experience

I don't know a lot about the way skills and classes are implemented, but what you say seems to make a lot of sense in this regard. I like the idea of my Kerbals having skills and gaining experience, but the current system seems kludged on, and doesn't add value to my game play. The experience system definitely needs a rework IMO. Launching and piloting large, complex craft on long and difficult missions should add SAS experience, even if it goes to a destination that pilot has previously visited. Operating a mobile science lab in orbit around some distant body for years should add science skill. As of 1.0, the experience game for me consists more of figuring out how to abuse the system to rapidly level my pilots and scientists, rather than designing interesting missions of exploration.

Regarding the cost and flexibility of hiring Kerbals, all I can add is "100% agree". My current behavior is simply to rescue Kerbals until I have a crew of the size I desire. While this is generally viable, it makes the entire hiring interface completely irrelevant.

2. Tech Tree

What bugs me the most is that gaining science has always felt pointlessly grindy to me. I feel that KSP should at its core be a rocket launching and orbital mechanics game, and I hate doing gimmicky things like rolling around KSP to collect arbitrary science points so that I can successfully do those things.

I approve of some form of "tech tree" as a player limitation, and as a way to introduce parts to career mode in some focused manner (so new players aren't overwhelmed by thousands of unfamiliar parts). However, I think some hypothetical other system could do it much better than what we've got currently.

It's super frustrating to me that I want to do a Mun mission (and I get the contract to Explore Mun) well before I unlock the parts to make a reasonable Mun lander. I accept the "Explore Mun" contract, and then struggle hopelessly to complete it with my current tech, rather than taking a boring series of suborbital crew reports or whatever.

For the average player to successfully Explore Mun, they will want radial decouplers, fuel lines, struts, the Terrier engine and larger fuel tanks, solar panels, and possibly a heat shield in order to do it properly. That's six new tech unlocks to reach seven components; and each of those nodes contains many other pieces that I'll practically never use, but one which is critical. It really feels like I'm being artificially and arbitrarily constrained.

It may be an interesting challenge for an experienced player to make a Mun landing without these technologies, but I imagine it would be hugely frustrating as a novice for the game to be suggesting you go to Mun before you have the techs that enable it. (Lacking the Terrier, you have no good vacuum engine, and no low profile engine that matches with your landing struts. Without fuel lines, you're limited to very inefficient designs. With tiny fuel tanks and no struts, you're significantly limited by rocket flexion).

In essence, if you can manage to build a Mun landing mission lacking some or all of these tools, essentially the game has taught you the wrong way to go about it (tall floppy rockets, layered onion staging, no efficient fuel line utilization, etc.)

3. Contracts

I can see an application for randomly generated contracts, but I would unlock them as part of the end game, to add continued play to career mode. For the beginning of career mode (most new players' introduction to the game), I would script a specific (possibly branching) development path with specific objectives and rewards. I would combine the concept of tech tree and contracts and call it a career path. The game almost already does this with the first few contracts, and the planetary exploration contracts. I would basically expand this into a whole program, leaving randomly generated contracts as a minority, or simply as end-game content.

I would have a scripted series of contracts or mission objectives, that would progressively teach a new player how to accomplish more complex objectives in the game; gaining a certain altitude, leaving the atmosphere, making a suborbital flight, making an orbit, etc. I would have each mission reward certain technologies, and build on a path to achieving increasingly challenging goals. Eliminate the existing tech tree concept entirely. This speaks to Geschosskopf's concerns about having what you do during a mission affect what you learn from the mission in a rational way.

The introduction of new technologies would be specifically guided by player choice, in order to set the player up to achieve the next mission. How a player chooses to solve a given problem (with wings and jets, or rockets, or whatever) might affect which path they're on, and which technologies they unlock as a result.

We're familiar with the concept of a tech tree from many games, and we're used to progressively filling out such a tree. But sadly this system hasn't mapped well to actually playing KSP. The tree feels artificially limiting, parts aren't introduced in a rational order, and gaining science quickly becomes a repetitive slog. I'm in favor of a complete overhaul of these systems.

4. Mobile Processing Lab

In general I share Geschosskopf's concerns regarding the MPL. It is possible to leverage it in order to gain a lot of science, but this requires multiple high level scientists, and placing the MPL in orbit of a distant body. Honestly by the time you can achieve these things, you're likely approaching done with the tech tree just from picking up science on Mun, Minmus, and Duna. Where you'll want to be going anyway in order to level your Kerbals.

It bothers me that the early game is significantly science/tech constrained, yet once you can build a craft with a couple basic science instruments capable of hopping on Minmus, the science game is essentially over.

Gathering science feels repetitive and grindy. Doing simple contracts to build cash feels repetitive and grindy. Doing a dozen LKO rescue missions in order to fill out my roster feels repetitive and grindy. Leveling any but my first generation of Kerbals feels repetitive and grindy. The arbitrary, randomly generated contracts, and their terrible gibberish text, feel repetitive and meaningless.

I remember so eagerly looking forward to systems in KSP where I had to carefully manage my Funds and Reputation, something like "Space Program Tycoon"; getting the public to believe in the program so that I could fund the next mission, praying it doesn't explode and wipe out a huge chunk of reputation, using what I learned form that mission to build more advanced parts and take my program farther out into the unknown.

Sadly, the KSP we have today doesn't make me feel that way at all. Endless funds and reputation are available by repeating any simple, tedious contract. Gaining science is mostly a matter of repeating the same few experiments across as many biomes as I can afford to reach. The difficulty slider only affects the costs of things, and the amount of reward you receive for contracts, which equates to an "increased grindiness" slider. It doesn't, IMO, add any genuine difficulty to the game in any way.

The hard (and enjoyable) parts of KSP remain: designing and piloting ambitious missions, learning the laws of good rocket design, learning orbital mechanics, and getting your Kerbals home alive (or blowing them up spectacularly). None of the new career systems encourage or add value to these activities.

An in-game mission planner (Achieve equatorial LKO, Achieve Munar orbit, Land in Farside Crater, Collect a Surface Sample, Transmit an EVA Report, Achieve Munar orbit, Achieve Kerbin orbit, Splashdown within 100km of KSC), which gave rewards in science points (or funds or reputation or some other metric) for each objective, would be much more engaging. Perhaps with a difficulty modifier for accomplishing your mission within certain time constraints, budget constraints, ÃŽâ€v constraints, with an inexperienced pilot, lacking certain technologies, or visiting a body you haven't before.

This would, IMO, really leverage KSP's greatest strengths, which have always been player-guided missions of exploration, testing the limits of what you yourself can achieve, and how efficiently you can plan and pilot a mission.

Edited July 7, 2015 by Anglave