I've been saying this for years... now someone other than Squad is realizing it.

[Superfluous J]

The point everyone seems to be missing is 'immersion.' While KSP will keep you entertained for a period of time, building things, learning orbital mechanics and the limitations of the environment. Once you reach the point that you're confident you can go wherever you want and land whatever you want, the entertainment factor stops. That's something Astroneer at least appears to have accomplished and KSP hasn't.

Immersion has nothing to do with how long you play the game. If it did, KSP would be the most immersive game I've ever played, hands down. FTL would be next, followed by Minecraft. Immersion has to do with - surprise - how immersed you feel when you play. How much you forget it's a game and just experience it. KSP always feels like a game to me, so immersion is pretty low. Games where I control a single person (FPSes mostly) are the most immersive, but I don't play them much.

Any game where lots of people say "After X hundred (or thousand) hours of playing I got bored" is not a bad game. That's a resounding success.

Everything you build in KSP initially has a purpose... to get somewhere other than where you are. The problem is, once you get there, the only purpose it serves is to attempt to impress yourself and others with the accomplishment. Once that passes, there's no point in it being there. Ok, so you built a base on Duna. You use gobs of mods... Tac Life Support, RemoteTech, ScanSat... etc., and you have fun building it. But once it's complete... then what? You EVA a Kerbal to plant a flag and... fly around with your jetpack? So you break out the rover and go for a drive to find... well, there's nothing to discover so that's pointless. So you mine for some ore to convert into fuel so you can go somewhere else and do... what? Mine more ore?

All true. In Astroneer, what is the ultimate purpose of all the stuff you build on-site? Hint: It's pretty much the same. All sandbox type games suffer from this. Either there are puzzles to solve so you feel good about solving them, or ultimately useless things to make so you can feel good about making them. Then there's nothing to do so you move on.

I hope this game does well. I hope it's fun. If it is, I'll probably play it and if I do, I hope years from now I'm on a forum where people are talking about the next big open game that fixes all the problems in Astroneers that force ITS players to stop playing out of boredom after hundreds (or thousands) of hours.

I also hope No Man's Sky is great. It surely looks it though I'm still wondering if the 1000th planet you visit will be interesting, considering it's just a random combination of all the stuff on the first 999 planets you visited.

[G'th]

Any game where lots of people say "After X hundred (or thousand) hours of playing I got bored" is not a bad game.

Its a bit of a catch 22 though. Where having so many hours possible in a game is great, it also means that for the people that end up getting bored after such and such amount of hours we still want to play but really can't because the interest gets lost when theres no more content to keep you going.

I personally, after 2000+ hours am only just starting to go interplanetary but even I completely agree with the idea that there should be more to do once you go places. I feel the game should really expand past just the VAB/SPH, if nothing else to at least allow the players who would rather fly than build to have more to do without having to just fake it. Because after all, if we're just gonna fake it, why bother with the game at all?

Its more or less the same argument you would see in the RPG world where the debate is player skill versus character skill, and all those little bits and bobs that enhance roleplaying even if they don't necessarily add to the actual gameplay. Sure we can pretend that we're a Paladin instead of a basic Warrior even though the game doesn't differentiate, but that isn't the point of roleplaying.

[Red Iron Crown]

My mind boggles at the complaint of getting bored with a game after "only" hundreds or thousands of hours. How many modern games hold one's attention for a hundred hours, or even fifty? Very few, in my experience, and those that hit a hundred are what I would consider great games. Every game eventually becomes repetitive. Every game's content is eventually exhausted.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to see more things to do in KSP but being disappointed that it gets a bit tired after the equivalent of a full working year playing it seems like a case of unrealistic expectations.

[G'th]

My mind boggles at the complaint of getting bored with a game after "only" hundreds or thousands of hours. How many modern games hold one's attention for a hundred hours, or even fifty? Very few, in my experience, and those that hit a hundred are what I would consider great games. Every game eventually becomes repetitive. Every game's content is eventually exhausted.

Don't get me wrong, I would love to see more things to do in KSP but being disappointed that it gets a bit tired after the equivalent of a full working year playing it seems like a case of unrealistic expectations.

I wouldn't say that. I'd say its more of a case of wanting more when there isn't any more to get. And I can say that from personal experience.

Morrowind is the only other game other than KSP that I've put 2000+ hours into (ACtually put somewhere in the area of 4500 hours into it) and much like KSP I have not actually done everything there is to do in that game. However, you take one of Morrowin's successors, Skyrim, where I've put may be 500 hours into the game and I've quite literally done everything there is to do multiple times over.

All 3 games have obviously paid for themselves entertainment wise a hundred times over, but the fact that Skyrim gave me less entertainment than a game that came before it by the same company does say quite a bit about what could have been done with that game content wise. But of course I'm not about to start that whole discussion so we'll leave the example at that.

As far as KSP goes, its great, but that doesn't change that there are parts of the game that really are unfinished or at best just not fully realized. Science, which does comprise the bulk of "stuff" to do once we go to a place, is one of those parts. Bring science on par with the other parts of the game would do wonders for everybody, including us people that have put over 4.5 months of straight play time into the game. But thats not to say I'm bored with the game, mind you. Like I said, I'm only just starting to go interplanetary so I haven't quite run out of things to do.

[Castille7]

I have a suggestion about this Topic and posted it on the Suggestions and Development Discussion Forum with a Poll

F.W.O. Care Packages to maintain life on other Planets?

I stumped across this topic (link below) with a lot of hype about KSP having no purpose after reaching all the Planets, and Muns in it's Galaxy. After many ships, rovers and crafts of all kinds have been built the gamer is asking what next is there to do?

Topic

(I've been saying this for years... now someone other than Squad is realizing it.)

My suggestion is F.W.O. Care Packages (Food, Water & Oxygen) These would be considered Care Packages that would be delivered to Space Stations, Mun Bases and Colonies. My idea how this would work. Modules, Capsules...etc would have a set amount of F.W.O. aboard that in time will deplete if not replenished, they could be individual and combined items. Each item would have a determined amount of weight. Food could be a Crate, Water and Oxygen would be in Containers and weighted as well. Deliveries would then have to be made in order to maintain life. This would be a way of adding maintenance to the game giving Kerbals a purpose not only to discover but also the means of survival.

I always appreciate good criticism so please feel free to comment with any ideas you may have.

[Fengist]

I have a suggestion about this Topic and posted it on the Suggestions and Development Discussion Forum with a Poll

F.W.O. Care Packages to maintain life on other Planets?

I stumped across this topic (link below) with a lot of hype about KSP having no purpose after reaching all the Planets, and Muns in it's Galaxy. After many ships, rovers and crafts of all kinds have been built the gamer is asking what next is there to do?

Topic

(I've been saying this for years... now someone other than Squad is realizing it.)

My suggestion is F.W.O. Care Packages (Food, Water & Oxygen) These would be considered Care Packages that would be delivered to Space Stations, Mun Bases and Colonies. My idea how this would work. Modules, Capsules...etc would have a set amount of F.W.O. aboard that in time will deplete if not replenished, they could be individual and combined items. Each item would have a determined amount of weight. Food could be a Crate, Water and Oxygen would be in Containers and weighted as well. Deliveries would then have to be made in order to maintain life. This would be a way of adding maintenance to the game giving Kerbals a purpose not only to discover but also the means of survival.

I always appreciate good criticism so please feel free to comment with any ideas you may have.

That still doesn't solve the problem. All you'd be doing is adding a logistic crisis to a base station that has no real reason to be there in the first place. Not to say it's a bad idea. If those stations, bases and colonies had a reason to exist, this would add in even more realism. But, they don't.

- - - Updated - - -

Don't get me wrong, I would love to see more things to do in KSP but being disappointed that it gets a bit tired after the equivalent of a full working year playing it seems like a case of unrealistic expectations.

RIC... I like you guy, don't take this wrong... but if trying to get to orbit using RCS alone is an example of how far I need to dig into my imagination to stay entertained in this game... I'm severely lacking.

[WinkAllKerb'']

when there is no problem there is no solution.

whenever you're bored with something do something else. Simple

Also from my own /played >> 252 288 000 Seconds very little gaming experience i totally don't link the time played with liking a game or not or getting bored with it or not. I could play some game for thousand hours while not liking them. And play some game only a few minute and love them. I m interested only in concept and feeling while playing.

KSP is one of the best concept available actually, and whenever i play it i feel good and relaxed, kinda not expecting much more from a game here.

Edited October 14, 2015 by WinkAllKerb''
oh yeah that's only 8 years without sleeping , holiday etc. not really some sort of xp in any way. Talking about gaming ? Wut

[Superfluous J]

I could play some game for thousand hours while not liking them.

Why would you do that?

[Val]

That still doesn't solve the problem. All you'd be doing is adding a logistic crisis to a base station that has no real reason to be there in the first place. Not to say it's a bad idea. If those stations, bases and colonies had a reason to exist, this would add in even more realism. But, they don't.

Nothing in games have a reason to exists, other than to keep you playing. Player retention mechanisms. A lot of games have them.

In MMOs the gear grind is prevalent. And once you have all the best gear, you wait for the next level cap increase, so you can grind gear again. Whether you like a particular form of player retention, depends on how that game does it, how well it's presented and personal preference.

EDIT: Single player games often use difficulty levels for player retention. Finish the game on Normal. Play it again on Hard.

Sandbox games like KSP often also have less formalized player retention mechanisms. To a larger degree, players create their own ways to keep interested. Mods is one way to do it. Challenges another. Whether you like it, is also a question of personal preference.

Good games usually have many different mechanisms to be able to cater to a wider audience. But eventually, no matter the mechanisms, any game will lose their ability to keep you interested. When it happens it is fine to say so and to suggest improvements.

RIC... I like you guy, don't take this wrong... but if trying to get to orbit using RCS alone is an example of how far I need to dig into my imagination to stay entertained in this game... I'm severely lacking.

But don't belittle others, just because they still find enjoyment in the game and you don't. Edited October 14, 2015 by Val
Single player

[Red Iron Crown]

RIC... I like you guy, don't take this wrong... but if trying to get to orbit using RCS alone is an example of how far I need to dig into my imagination to stay entertained in this game... I'm severely lacking.

Spending an hour doing a silly stunt because a challenge tickled my fancy is hardly indicative of how I usually play the game. Even if it was, silly stunts are a long standing and honorable pursuit in KSP.

[lajoswinkler]

And the only thing stopping the mod community is the dozens of hacks modders have to do to get around the KSP API's and Unity's vast limitations.

What if modders want to make the game as realistic as possible? Lagrange points? No can do. Multiple solar systems with different planets? Nope. Orbital decay? Nope.

While I'm at it, why does it take 5 minutes to get KSP to load and 15 seconds every time I'm switching between scenes? No game I've ever played has had such ridiculous loading times, even with the texture compressor. Probably because KSP is officially tested with the highest-end rigs, the TITAN X, 512 GB SSD, 32 GB RAM, OC'd Skylake/Haswell, just to clear up any claim that KSP is laggy. Memory management is also garbage. Not to mention that many mods are unoptimized because of said hacks. In the future I would like to see a space sandbox game that is NOT made in Unity.

No, you can't make/mod everything in KSP. That is what I mean when I say a CAD.

It didn't stop someone from making an orbital decay mod.

Yeah, I agree it's not optimized, but that wasn't the point of my post. Of course you can't do everything with mods in general let alone KSP.

[vger]

That still doesn't solve the problem. All you'd be doing is adding a logistic crisis to a base station that has no real reason to be there in the first place. Not to say it's a bad idea. If those stations, bases and colonies had a reason to exist, this would add in even more realism. But, they don't.

Well, alright, here's a thing. Touching again on science being over-simplified. Right now, at the most we have biomes and now we have ore. Ore is a good starting point for a concept, but because it relies entire on sats, the post-landing mission is still pretty simple. What if gathering science on the surface of a body actually took TIME? We have Mars rovers that have logged years of exploration time. We should be able to figure out a way to make driving on a planet have a practical purpose for at least a few minutes. Hey, not everything can be detected from space. Some things on Mars have only been discovered by wandering the desert, taking a photo, and then picking a rock that looks interesting.

So what we need is 'scanning' that requires something more than passive control. A level of resolution that wouldn't be practical except on the surface. Maybe there's something that the thinktanks suspect can be found in a certain biome, but it's too rare to scan for from space, or to just land on the ground and grab it with a single click. The only option is to get down there and actively hunt for it. That gives the driving of rovers something more interesting to do, and a use for more complex instrument packages.

You can also take this a step further with drilling for science. A rover might be able to find a good spot, but accomplishing the entire drilling task could take months. Drill bits may wear out, gear boxes may need oil, etc, requiring Kerbals to be present to perform maintenance and replace parts. Now suddenly you have a practical reason for a base, and a little bit of EVA fun.

Edited October 14, 2015 by vger

[Slam_Jones]

Found a game on Steam over the weekend somewhat similar to Astroneer, called Empyrion. It is (you guessed it!) an early access title.

Having bought it for $20, I wasn't expecting much. What I found was a game with a rather steep learning curve (I skipped the tutorial and Sandbox modes and went straight for survival). I made at least half a dozen different save files trying to get going, and eventually did (on a file named "This_Time_For_Real"). Being an early access title, not everything is implemented, and in fact I had to go online a few times to figure out what should be basic issues. Such as, "how do I turn on the power at my base?" It doesn't tell you anywhere, but you press Y.

It's absolutely not a KSP clone. Not even close. It is (like most games in the genre) much more similar to Minecraft than KSP (and perhaps a lot like Space Engineers... never played that one though.) Physics are crazy simplified, in that "orbit" is achieved by flying up really high (horizontal speed is not a factor), and you reach your top speed in a much more "arcade-y" manner than KSP. Supposedly once you are able to get into space, you can travel to other planets. I've only just gotten an orbit-capable ship built (after building a hover vessel to look for resources and a base for fun/production) so I haven't tested that part of it yet. Some of the physics stuff is more realistic, such as that in order to go a direction, you have to have a thruster facing that way. Found that out when I built a hovercraft that just wouldn't stop unless it ran into something. An extra three thrusters later (one pointing left, one pointing right, one pointing forward (for brakes)), I had it under control.

As far as building going, it is (mostly) Minecraft-like. However, instead of the terrain being made up of blocks and whatnot, it's just a thin skin that can be deformed. This means you can burrow into the ground to mine resources, build bases, or whatever else you enjoy doing in a hole in the ground. Building vehicles (and bases) do you blocks, though.

There are also hostile creatures populating the planets, from Dinosaurs to Aliens to Robotic Drones that try to attack you and your base. You can craft weapons to hunt and fight off hostiles with, both hand-held and vessel-mounted.

One of the features I'm looking forward to testing the most, is building Capital Ships. These are Base-sized ships, which you can walk around in, fly to other worlds, etc etc. From what I've seen so far, part(& block) count doesn't affect CPU peformance nearly as much as KSP. Then again, there's a lot less going on.

All in all, it's a surprisingly fun game. While I doubt KSP would ever, ever, become anything like this, it is nice to see other games stepping up to the plate and trying to combine space exploration with things to do there. Sure, at the moment, things to do is limited to shooting things, digging holes, and building stuff, but that's about 1000% more than you can do on a planet in KSP. Edit: I should also mention that you can find other Points of Interest, such as crashed capital ships, or Drone factories.

Also, there are several different resources needed to build stuff. Because of this, the game splits the resources to different deposits, which are marked when you get close enough. This means that, believe it or not, there's actual incentive to explore the planet. If you run your closest Iron deposit completely out of ore (or if you need more Cobalt, or Copper, or Silicon, or...), you'll need to find another one. Some resources can only be found on certain planets, which again gives players reasons to explore. Not just to get there... but to actually do something there.

Currently the planets are very small (can't say for certain, but it feels like about 10x smaller than Kerbal planets), and the poles are blocked, but the dev says he's working on expanding on those fronts.

What's my point? I guess my point is that personally, KSP is getting dull fast (and I say that at 1,200+ hours spent on it). More stuff to do on planets is great, but I doubt that will ever really be in the scope of KSPs future. I guess the point really is, all good things come to an end, and so too shall KSP. I just hope another excellent studio is ready to step up and take the lead with these types of games. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Edited October 14, 2015 by Slam_Jones

[WinkAllKerb'']

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2013/feb/14/frustration-in-game-design

"From here I thought, well, is frustration part of game design or a failure of game design? Certainly, frustration has been there from the beginning."

but in the beggining it' wasn't a teaching module in programming school that's mostly the difference, you know, kinda use and don't abuse kind of stuff. It can be but when too much is too much ; ) In the beggining it was more from a devs feeling "natural" implementation of frustration in gaming this is kinda the difference, now it turned like some sort of over used recipe.

Disminushing return work as expected no matter what ; ) also speaking of mmo, many boss fight use tank taunt exchange xDr

@5th last time i did it was to please my younger brother and play with him poorly designed games xDr or sometime just per curiosity to see how far they have been kinda intrumental calibration and rescale/reset of my reachable dumbness reference level.

Addendum: also you can't unlink this in // with the number of games available today in // with 5 years ago , in // with 10 years ago in // with ... people switch faster that's all ...

Edited October 14, 2015 by WinkAllKerb''
and whenever frustration reach level 300 it's usually kinda annoyin, just sayin'

[Superfluous J]

Empyrion

I saw a video for this about 6 months ago I think. It's come along since then. I'm seriously considering nabbing it. Thanks for bringing this back to my attention!

[Slam_Jones]

I saw a video for this about 6 months ago I think. It's come along since then. I'm seriously considering nabbing it. Thanks for bringing this back to my attention!

No problem! I've actually really enjoyed it. You'll likely have to check the online resources a couple times to get everything figured out, but once you do it's pretty fun!

[lajoswinkler]

So what we need is 'scanning' that requires something more than passive control. A level of resolution that wouldn't be practical except on the surface. Maybe there's something that the thinktanks suspect can be found in a certain biome, but it's too rare to scan for from space, or to just land on the ground and grab it with a single click. The only option is to get down there and actively hunt for it. That gives the driving of rovers something more interesting to do, and a use for more complex instrument packages.

Kethane had a superior protocol which also allowed you to learn how different orbits affect the ground path. Unfortunatelly, Squad agreed to an overly simplistic protocol which is totally uninteresting.

[Superfluous J]

Kethane had a superior protocol ...

Kethane WOULD HAVE had a superior protocol if it allowed scanning during time warp. I miss the result but will never miss the "Set up the orbit and go watch TV" aspect.

[Fengist]

Good games usually have many different mechanisms to be able to cater to a wider audience. But eventually, no matter the mechanisms, any game will lose their ability to keep you interested. When it happens it is fine to say so and to suggest improvements.

But don't belittle others, just because they still find enjoyment in the game and you don't.

I'd never belittle RIC... I was, more or less, poking some fun at him.

- - - Updated - - -

Spending an hour doing a silly stunt because a challenge tickled my fancy is hardly indicative of how I usually play the game. Even if it was, silly stunts are a long standing and honorable pursuit in KSP.

I agree completely. I just found it amusing that here we were discussing the need for more things to do and then I found that post. Just occurred to me that maybe we should make you the poster child for this thread. ..."This is what happens when you run out of things to do in KSP"...

Edited October 15, 2015 by Fengist

[Guest]

Kethane WOULD HAVE had a superior protocol if it allowed scanning during time warp. I miss the result but will never miss the "Set up the orbit and go watch TV" aspect.

It has been a while since I played with Kethane and my memory is not so good anymore, but I think Kethane would allow time warp scanning, it just didn't work well at higher speeds. 50X, ok. 100X, not so good. 1000x + barely worked at all. It wasn't necessarily that Kethane wouldn't allow it, it was KSP that couldn't handle it. Not to insinuate it's KSP's fault, just that the way the mod works didn't jibe with the way time warp works.

As far as subject of this thread goes, I would like to see some more stuff to do planet side. I realize that's a never ending desire however. Squad adds stuff, I do said stuff, and then want more stuff. I think we all are probably always going to want more stuff.

[Superfluous J]

It has been a while since I played with Kethane and my memory is not so good anymore, but I think Kethane would allow time warp scanning, it just didn't work well at higher speeds. 50X, ok. 100X, not so good. 1000x + barely worked at all. It wasn't necessarily that Kethane wouldn't allow it, it was KSP that couldn't handle it. Not to insinuate it's KSP's fault, just that the way the mod works didn't jibe with the way time warp works.

Sorry, that is true. 50x was fine and you could hack it to work with 100x IIRC. What I meant was, while the vessel was not in focus. I wanted to put my vessel in orbit, go away and do interesting things, and then come back to find the planet scanned. Not get into orbit, hit 50x warp, and then watch TV for 2 hours.

[lajoswinkler]

Kethane WOULD HAVE had a superior protocol if it allowed scanning during time warp. I miss the result but will never miss the "Set up the orbit and go watch TV" aspect.

It did allow time warp scanning. If the speed was too high, accuracy would be lower, but you don't need 100% accuracy if you're going over thousand times faster. The map would be "printed out" like slowly emerging white noise while the satellite would be fluttering around. Also you didn't need 100% accuracy as even a map with sufficient data density would clearly show where the kethane is and how much is there. It really was superior, but mainly because you saw the ground track which was awesome.