Technology Tree

[Capt'n Skunky]

I was brainstorming the other day and thought about how the tech tree would work. This is just a basic framework concept with a lot of room for wiggle.

Remember, this was just some concept planning designed to get the brain juices flowing and get a discussion started, it\'s not anything official.

Arrr!

Capt\'n Skunky

[Joe Pinball]

loving it!

I like the idea of tech trees that aren\'t totally rigid and constrained, but have some 'wiggle room' - for example:

starting out at the bottom of the tree you would have no real tech to speak of, just access to the very basic parts to make a rocket-and you have to purchase them of course. you would also be able to buy parts from 1 or maybe 2 levels 'above your grade' to improve your mission success chances/profit, but at a stupid price-hike cost.

This is of course just one incentive to move up the tech tree, to make the cost of parts cheaper (maybe researching it\'s technologies lowers the cost a bit, but developing your own factory to make said parts makes it not only much cheaper, but maybe you could then sell them on for a steady income stream to help fund your other research!)

just a couple of ideas off the top of my addled brain

Joe 8)

[Lord Wasteland]

I agree, except micro-circuitry should be for munar missions, following history.

[Drunaii]

This is a nice flowchart, I like the close integration of the technology side with the industry side. It would be nice if the tech development didn\'t end with producing a part, though. Maybe the first few parts you build have a high failure rate (boosters explode, struts break, etc), but you could continue to do research into that part type (or just use it a lot), and that failure rate would decrease. Then you could take a risk with some new fancy aerospike that might explode, or go with the tried and true SRB. Just a thought.

[Capt'n Skunky]

Yup, this doesn\'t take into consideration the upgrade process. I deliberately left that out so multiple methods could be considered. I also left out anything about obtaining things through other means such as purchasing.

Obviously this is something for a campaign mode and you would start out with minimal basics to create your own craft.

Arrr!

Capt\'n Skunky

[Lord Wasteland]

Skunky, would in the future of the game when campaign mode is set up, would components need to be tested before launch, or just launch em and see how it goes?

[Capt'n Skunky]

Skunky, would in the future of the game when campaign mode is set up, would components need to be tested before launch, or just launch em and see how it goes?

That\'s outside the scope of what this was for. Details like that were deliberately left out so they could be worked out separately.

Personally, a testing program would be nice, but just launching them and looking at the results is more of a Kerbal-style testing.

Arrr!

Capt\'n Skunky

[Tim_Barrett]

That looks incredible! Hopefully the campaign or realistic version will have this instead of 'You need more money.'

Why not 'You need to build a giant-ass rocket, get to this place, mine some shit, come back, and THEN make a bigger rocket, get to this place, mine some shit...'

[Ascensiam]

That looks incredible! Hopefully the campaign or realistic version will have this instead of 'You need more money.'

Why not 'You need to build a giant-ass rocket, get to this place, mine some shit, come back, and THEN make a bigger rocket, get to this place, mine some shit...'

Mining with rockets.

That sounds so kerbal it might just work.

[Pluto100]

Awesome Tech Tree idea!

[Stevenator1]

I love the idea of tech trees, and a 'campaign' style play. However I think that there absolutely needs to continue to be a way to play the game with no money / research restrictions.

Beyond that, I absolutely think the idea of tech trees, mining, and industry would be fantastic.

I almost visualize a sim city -esque setup that this game could evolve into. You make residential, industry sections, you choose what to mine, you have to get parts to set up mines around the planet where different minerals are. Mineral scan vehicles to go around finding the mineral-rich spots, etc.

[Capt'n Skunky]

I\'m pretty sure Harv has said that a sandbox mode will always be an option, so this really wouldn\'t affect that.

Arrr!

Capt\'n Skunky

[Stevenator1]

In that case, I am all for a campaign mode.

It would be a fantastic challenge to go through tremendous amounts of work to make spaceships that go to the Mun, that we take complete advantage of right now.

And it would be even funnier (or worse) to experience the explosions when they screw up!

[samstarman5]

I am all up for starting from the ground up for campaign, but I wouldn\'t mind having a rocket built from scrap available from the get-go.

[Capt'n Skunky]

I am all up for starting from the ground up for campaign, but I wouldn\'t mind having a rocket built from scrap available from the get-go.

I think that\'s the idea. You start by being able to build 'junkyard' rockets. Low funding, high failure. As you complete tasks, you get to improve things increasing not only reliability, but cost as well. Then with research you can start to lower cost without loss of reliability or increase reliability with minimal cost.

Arrr!

Capt\'n Skunky

[Jmaa]

I think that the idea of a 'failure rate' is horrible.

Say i have come the whole way to the moon, i have no money left and the moon mission is my last hope.

Then when i am landing perfectly, one of the landing legs say 'nope, DIE!!!' after a 1% failure rate, and my craft fall over and explode.

That would be really unfair.

I say change the effectivety of a piece, like the more you use it, you will get better firerate/fuel-compresion/other.

[ultrasquid]

There should always be some way of acquiring enough funding for the next mission, though that mission might not be what the player immediately intends. Commercial and government agencies wil want to employ the KSC\'s services from time to time to launch satellites and their own research missions. The player should be at liberty to decline some of these missions, but it would serve as a source of income, the profits of which can be channeled into supplementary funding for research and development and those fun exploratory missions.

[Jmaa]

I am all for that but to get to the mun i need a lot of money.

And i dont think i can make that back by placing a few satellites.

Also i think i would get a bit tedious to send 10 of the same satellites up all the time.

[Vanamonde]

So far the game is roughly imitating the 60s US space program, but might the tech tree and campaign mode do more? Say, start with Sputkerb, work your way up to manned flights, etc., past modern times, and on to something like HAL and the Discovery?

[Lord Wasteland]

Also the plugins, like the sat network, mechjeb, mapping, and probes should be used to identify landing sites.

[GoodGuy]

Im still hoping that the campaign would begin with KSP being a spin off of the kerbal ICBM program in a Kold war.

[Jmaa]

Also what about the fact that A/SAS is pretty advanced tech, you would think that i would make more sense to have it in mid-game?

But that could turn a lot of players away because of the difficulty of launching a rocket of the ground and steering Manuel.

I know that we soon will have the kerbals help 'steering' but they need to be 'trained' else they would be 'steering' towards the ground.

It could even end up being like mount and blade in the early game: you finally get a small army going, and then you get crushed by a big army and are back to square one.

And it could be even worse in KSP because you will constantly prototyping new crafts and accidentally kill crew,

What if your best pilot was in that craft where the landing strut randomly decided that it didn\'t want to work.

Or even worse: Your best pilot was in a craft where you side-kick 'level' 1 cadet get to steer and destroy a orbit and then your decoupler dont pass a small chance check and the craft crash.

If that makes any sense at all?

But i like the idea of a tech-tree and kerbal-crew but i think that it easily could end up the wrong way.

Sorry for my rambling, I tend to ramble

[Endeavour]

So far the game is roughly imitating the 60s US space program, but might the tech tree and campaign mode do more? Say, start with Sputkerb, work your way up to manned flights, etc., past modern times, and on to something like HAL and the Discovery?

I agree with that, but I think that Mun landings should come before rendezvous/docking in the game unless an update changes things. Mun landings are so much easier at this point in the game.

[Pluto100]

So far the game is roughly imitating the 60s US space program, but might the tech tree and campaign mode do more? Say, start with Sputkerb, work your way up to manned flights, etc., past modern times, and on to something like HAL and the Discovery?

I am afraid I can\'t let you do that Vanamonde.

[sss]

Good.

when you said tech tree, i thought of allegiance.