What happened to the SPACE in KSP?

[Laie]

I should correct myself: getting there the first time or two is fun. It's a new challenge. Can I get to it? Can I land on it? Can I get back? But once you've done initial meet & greet, you know there's nothing to come back to, really. It's a big, dead ball, just like all the rest. So we just sit on Kerbin and fart around with new ship designs.

That's a big reason for why I hardly ever move out from Kerbin anymore.You can do all your rovering and flying and (now) swimming on Kerbin, no need to wrap your payload into a fairing and send it to other planets first. I can't think of anything I'd possibly want to do on (say) Duna that wouldn't quickly devolve into make-work.

I think players should be able to achieve such a level of ISRU/colonization that they are then allowed to launch new vessels from the surface their colonized planet. (I'm thinking a Duna VAB and Launch Pad)

That might help. I can well imagine messing around in the Jool system a lot more than I currently do.

[Kobymaru]

A lot is explained, if you stop seeing Squad as SQUAD and start seeing it as individual people with different skills/priorities.

I think why SPACE got so "neglected" is for two reasons:

Back before they had PorkJet, the Airplane parts looked rather trashy. They got PorkJet because they fell in love with his style, and he started to work on the worst art of the game, and that were SpacePlane parts.

Now that they are almost completely overhauled, I'm pretty sure that either PorkJet starts to work on space parts and/or they get another modder to do that (I'm kinda hoping for Nertea here)

In the meantime, they made a new Atmo and a new Heating. And TBH, that's great. I think everyone is forgetting the old souposphere, which was plainly ridiculous. For real guys, do you complain about this?

Now about the Buoancy: They got NathanKell because he has got Mad Skillz. I'm pretty sure, Buoancy wasn't SQUAD's priority. Nobody even wanted to do that, but NathanKell just went and whipped up some magic code that worked really well. So Squad said "wow, really cool, why not??" Also note that this wasn't the only thing he did. He basically fixed everything that was wrong with the Heating System and then some. Good man.

The other thing is that for now, they don't have the RAM to make the game pretty. I think people will be a little more motivated to go to space if the planets look good.

So I'm inclined to say that parts-and visuals wise, we should just wait.

Now that's not to say I don't have wishes...

My biggest wish for the mid-term is that they introduce some form of Life Support and some meaningful Time Based mechanics. Their current stance on "if you can timewarp through it, it doesn't make sense" is S-backbwards. People shouldn't be able to just timewarp for free without consequences, and they should be able to leave their Kerbals Stranded in space for years only to see them crawl out freshly from the capsule when they come to get them.

I know that there are Mods for life support. I just think they need to make some form of it stock. The fact that RoverDude has a Stock-ish LS mod and that he's employed by Squad gives me Hope.

[Hannu]

KSP's memory problems are due mostly to Unity and not really Squad's fault. All the stuff you talk of adding takes more memory, guess what? Bouyancy does not take memory.

Unity is an easy explanation to every problem. However, I do not believe that it is impossible to do things better. Squad itself does not accuse Unity as much as players. Even if it was Unity's fault, I am customer of Squad and Squad have chosen Unity as an engine for their product. If they begin to develop a large game on engine made for short advertisement animations etc. light stuff they should expect problems. At least complaining customers.

[r4pt0r]

It was also a contracts improvement

Thats really subjective. Losing rep because I turn down a contract to land a kerbal on Hell Eve is just dumb. Or maybe I dont like Duna so I don't accept missions there. Why should I get docked rep for running my program my way?

[Hannu]

So you either Roleplay a situation, or get a mod that does it for you, and wait for devs future updates, which for the love of God they actually provide for FREE???.. in the end i dont know what we arguing about here, or what exactly is the problem (other than the lack of patience, im guilty as charged as well).

I see free updates also as a problem which demotivates the development. I would pay 200 € for a new KSP 2.0, which had a better game engine which could use large amounts of memory and processor cores effectively, procedurally generated detailed planets and bit more engineering aspect (time as a resource, life supplies, aging of everything, advanced trajectory prediction and planning functions, axial tilts and inclined orbits, seed based exploration system to give a new world for every save etc.) Or possibility to mod all these things. Graphical level could be the same or even lower.

KSP is very good game and best game I have ever played. I have played it enormous amounts of hours. Probably more than every other games totally (I begun gaming at 80's). Maybe therefore I have enormous and unrealistic wish list for it. But it is so near the perfect game.

[John FX]

I like 1.0.5, for ages we have asked for bug fixes and it`s got a lot of them. Underwater is a new thing too and i`ll enjoy having a look there although for me it really drives home the need for an electric propeller which could be used for subs and small planes and drones.

I would still like to see increased choices for activity once a planet is reached in future updates, currently to max out science from a landing spot takes around 15 seconds. If we had long term experiments that took a similar time to ISRU filling a small tank then that could be a start. I currently use scansat to increase the time needed to scan a planet as I don`t like `instascan` from being in the right orbit for 10 seconds.

Hopefully when all platforms have a viable 64 bit version this will give the devs the headroom to be able to put that sort of stuff into the game.

[Choctofliatrio]

I don't see KSP as moving away from rocket parts. 1.0, the last big update, added many things:

Fairings (for rockets)

Heat shields (rockets)

Service bays (rockets)

New xenon tanks (rockets)

Overhauled heating system, and reentry heat (rockets)

Ore and related parts (rockets)

Fuel cells (rockets)

Atmosphere remodeled (planes and rockets)

Landing gear (planes)

Some new wings (planes)

New models of old parts (planes)

AIRBRAKES (planes)

So in a recent update, many more things were added to add to rocketry than aviation. I think Squad is just making parts it feels the game needs, and this update was more centered around aviation because it needs more parts.

[juanml82]

Thats really subjective. Losing rep because I turn down a contract to land a kerbal on Hell Eve is just dumb. Or maybe I dont like Duna so I don't accept missions there. Why should I get docked rep for running my program my way?

You can change that from the customs difficulty options. I did.

A lot is explained, if you stop seeing Squad as SQUAD and start seeing it as individual people with different skills/priorities.

I think why SPACE got so "neglected" is for two reasons:

Back before they had PorkJet, the Airplane parts looked rather trashy. They got PorkJet because they fell in love with his style, and he started to work on the worst art of the game, and that were SpacePlane parts.

Now that they are almost completely overhauled, I'm pretty sure that either PorkJet starts to work on space parts and/or they get another modder to do that (I'm kinda hoping for Nertea here)

Porkjet has a habitat pack with a centrifuge. It's not like he can only do spaceplane parts.

The problem with Space (lets stick to KSP space, and not RL), is that once you are there its over.

Thing is, Squad said that they dont have life support plans for the near future, as they want to do something on their own about it that fits their design, and since we got a few working mods that fill the need already, they dont see it as a topmost priority.

We got a space station in Duna orbit, that will stay there forever with absolutelly no need to do nothing. So i dont have to worry about fuel, power, food, comunications, or even Kerbal mood.

We got an option to make fuel on Duna. But whats the point? Its easier to just launch a second ship from kerbin, avoiding the fuss.

Why? Simply because i got the time for it. Or should i say Kerbals got the time for it.

So unless you want to do something, theres no need to do so.

Its one of those Sandbox things, i guess.

Why are gamers play more with planes, land and sea? ( dunno if they actual do so, someone above me said so ), because you got stuff to do. You want to go land on point B ? You have to actual fly/drive there, paying attention to speed, heat, fuel/air flow, etc etc. Its not open map, make a node, burn for a time, and watch paint dry in time warp.

In the end (again im talking stock KSP here) its all in Squad hands, how and when they introduce Kerbal needs, and/or spaceship part failures/malfunctions, that will spice up gameplay, and give reasons to EVA and maintenance, Launch Resupply Missions for parts or resources and the list goes on.

I considered this game Complete, so long ago.. but still Squad keeps pushing updates, that i will not be surprised if at some point we got the above stuff in the stock game.

Lets not forget that we started with Kerbin, then Mun, then Minmus, then the rest, after a while came stock docking and yada yada.

What we do for the present? Well theres a huge list of mods to fill your needs, Roverdude mods got you covered for bases, IP travel and a bunch of stuff, Scansat got your exploration, satellites bit, you got a dozen mods for rocket parts (stock-alike or not), you got TAC, you got KAS KIS ABCEFGH .. cmon you got everything in there plus more...

So you either Roleplay a situation, or get a mod that does it for you, and wait for devs future updates, which for the love of God they actually provide for FREE???.. in the end i dont know what we arguing about here, or what exactly is the problem (other than the lack of patience, im guilty as charged as well).

While Moho, Vall and Eeloo are just the Mun with different textures and harder to reach, there are plenty of stuff that can be done in other bodies. The challenges subforum is a good place to look around. My latest mission to Duna involved:

Biome hoping on Ike using an ion/fuel cell lander

Sending the Ike Lander in the cargo bay of a large mothership (which also delivered other equipment and ships to Duna) to use it as a refueling ship for it

Managing a large ore truck/lander with rotating wheels courtesy of Infernal Robotics

Landing mining rigs on both Ike and Duna to support further operations (and "perform surveys" contracts)

Sending two aerospike powered spaceplanes to ferry Kerbals, visit Easter Eggs and do survey contracts, as well as biome science harvesting.

How did it work?

The Infernal Robotic parts of the large ore truck broke due a Kraken attack, leaving me without a functional in system refueling ship other than the mining rigs

The Spaceplanes proved incredibly hard to land on Duna's rolling, low pressure surface, so I had to cancel a visit to the Face since I couldn't possibly land there

The fuel cells on the ion lander got exhausted in the surface and, without a proper refueling lander, I had to dispatch a spaceplane from Duna to refuel it

Ended up putting one of the spaceplanes in a polar orbit in Ike to complete some survey contract, then send it to orbit Duna to wait for the transfer window back to Kerbin and sent it back to Ike' surface to refuel because I realized I didn't have enough fuel if the ship couldn't aerocapture at Kerbin and needed to burn fuel to capture.

That was a lot of fun, and notice how the issues to overcome weren't due some random malfunction mod but rather as consequences of imperfect design choices I've made.

So yes, you can just land, plant the flag, take a selfie and go back. But there are challenges you can make for yourself, and some are guided by contracts. I haven't tried the new bae/station contracts yet, and I fear they'll quickly turn those things into lagfests as components keep getting added, but that's gameplay you have there. And while I dislike the adjustments to heat and drag because they make reentry harder (and I don't know if I'll be able to complete the Eve and Laythe missions I've started in 1.0.4), I'm thinking if, instead of sending MK3 training ships to Mun/Minmus/Just ouside Kerbin's SOI which double as base and stations and get recovered at Kerbin, I shouldn't instead build an entire orbital infrastructure of space stations on LKO, refueling tugs, lighter ships to check all three SOIs, all of which can't reenter, and ferry kerbonauts and tourists in SSTOs.

[Thorbard]

I don't see KSP as moving away from rocket parts. 1.0, the last big update, added many things:

Fairings (for rockets)

Heat shields (rockets)

Service bays (rockets)

New xenon tanks (rockets)

Overhauled heating system, and reentry heat (rockets)

Ore and related parts (rockets)

Fuel cells (rockets)

Atmosphere remodeled (planes and rockets)

Landing gear (planes)

Some new wings (planes)

New models of old parts (planes)

AIRBRAKES (planes)

So in a recent update, many more things were added to add to rocketry than aviation. I think Squad is just making parts it feels the game needs, and this update was more centered around aviation because it needs more parts.

Not to mention that airbrakes, and some of the wings are also very useful for rocket stability under the new atmospheric conditions.

[NecroBones]

I'll weigh in alongside everybody who says what we really need is more stuff to do on all the planets. I got bored with building rockets ages ago, because there's just not much of anything for you to find when you get there. After doing Jool 5 in 0.90, I really felt like there wasn’t much left to do <...>

This is pretty similar to my experience as well. I did manned landings/returns to every body in the system, then the Jool-5, and then felt like I had nothing left to strive for. I turned to modding after that.

My experience was similar to many others here. I'd land somewhere, plant a flag, do the science, and then it was "oh look, we've been here for a whole 5 minutes, and it's time to go". I played the game mostly from map view, since I spent almost no time on the surfaces, and did most of my navigating visually from the trajectory conics. So most of the time I wasn't even looking at my ships.

I think something that would help the gameplay a lot, aside from adding some AP/PE and available dV numbers visible in ship view, is that we really need more things to do on the planetary surfaces. Give me a reason to stay landed for more than 5 minutes. Give me a reason to explore. Contracts help with this, of course, but I would love for sandbox to also give incentives. And, I played most of these missions before contracts were added.

And I'm finding that Science Sandbox is probably my favorite mode now. I can build what I want, without financial restriction, but within the limits of the technologies that I unlock.

[Choctofliatrio]

I think a good addition that could be made to make more time to be spent on the surface is make science experiments take longer. It makes no sense in real life to just expose your material samples for a few seconds and leave. You'd expose it for several minutes, observe the changes. You could get different science points for leaving it for a long time, short time, etc.

Course, that only really applies to career and science modes.

[Mastikator]

Thats really subjective. Losing rep because I turn down a contract to land a kerbal on Hell Eve is just dumb. Or maybe I dont like Duna so I don't accept missions there. Why should I get docked rep for running my program my way?

You can shut that off though. I wouldn't consider that a negative of even the near magnitude of the positive of expanding bases and stations per contract. Overall 1.0.5 is a great update IMO

[juanml82]

I think a good addition that could be made to make more time to be spent on the surface is make science experiments take longer. It makes no sense in real life to just expose your material samples for a few seconds and leave. You'd expose it for several minutes, observe the changes. You could get different science points for leaving it for a long time, short time, etc.

Course, that only really applies to career and science modes.

But then you click a button, you stare at the screen for a few minutes, maybe you get some visual or sound effect for completion and you're done.

A good game is a sucession of interesting choices.

[Spacetraindriver]

Am I the only one that remembers that spaceplanes were left alone for like alot?

Rockets: Got decouplers, got bigger tanks, lots of new science, asteroid redirect

Planes: Mk3, more mk2, new engines and wings.

See?

[tater]

The spaceplane parts make the rocket parts that are extant look terrible by comparison. Rockets? They are made from junkyard parts. Spaceplanes? Those come from an incredibly sophisticated aerospace industry. It's incredibly jarring.

[Choctofliatrio]

But then you click a button, you stare at the screen for a few minutes, maybe you get some visual or sound effect for completion and you're done.

A good game is a sucession of interesting choices.

You have a point. I was really only thinking of how to prolong time on the surface. But yeah, planets do need more varied and interesting things to do.

[KSK]

I don't see KSP as moving away from rocket parts. 1.0, the last big update, added many things:

Fairings (for rockets)

Heat shields (rockets)

Service bays (rockets)

New xenon tanks (rockets)

Overhauled heating system, and reentry heat (rockets)

Ore and related parts (rockets)

Fuel cells (rockets)

Atmosphere remodeled (planes and rockets)

Landing gear (planes)

Some new wings (planes)

New models of old parts (planes)

AIRBRAKES (planes)

So in a recent update, many more things were added to add to rocketry than aviation. I think Squad is just making parts it feels the game needs, and this update was more centered around aviation because it needs more parts.

That's a bit selective isn't it? I'll give you fairings, heatshields and possibly service bays. Now that ion gliders aren't really feasible, xenon is only really useful once you get to space, whether that's by rocket or plane. Improved heating and reentry applies to either - unless you were planning to leave that shiny spaceplane permanently in orbit. Ore and fuel cells can equally well be used by planes or rockets.

- - - Updated - - -

Am I the only one that remembers that spaceplanes were left alone for like alot?

Rockets: Got decouplers, got bigger tanks, lots of new science, asteroid redirect

Planes: Mk3, more mk2, new engines and wings.

See?

Decouplers? Seriously? They're about as elementary to rockets as wings are to planes and hardly an indication that rockets were given a privileged position over planes.

[JedTech]

Here are some contract ideas that might be fun on planet surfaces:

• Travel X kilometers in a rover while on the surface of <>
  
• Travel X meters away from your lander while on an EVA on the surface of <>
  
• On a single EVA, collect surface samples from two different biomes.
  
• To aid public relations: take a group photo (Screenshot) of at least X kerbals while on the surface of <>
  

Some game changes that might help:

• If a user accepts a contract to go somewhere, then automatically offer more contracts related to that location.
  
• Add a feature that allows user to set "Agency Goals".
  
  • User can set goals to flyby, orbit, land, plant flag, return, build base/station on a specified planetary body <>.
    
  • The Contracts system should tend to offer more contracts related to the players goals.
    

  [*]Make it easier to dock/connect vessels to each other while on a surface.

  [*]KIS like functionality. Nevermind, stock would never be as good as KIS. Everyone just install Kerbal Inventory System mod

[maceemiller]

1 year playing the game and everytime I switch it on I love it that little bit more. Always been into rockets but dabbling into planes atm with soooo much more to start doing, I personally dont care what Squad do in their updates........it just gets better, and better, and better.......and better.......

[Choctofliatrio]

That's a bit selective isn't it? I'll give you fairings, heatshields and possibly service bays. Now that ion gliders aren't really feasible, xenon is only really useful once you get to space, whether that's by rocket or plane. Improved heating and reentry applies to either - unless you were planning to leave that shiny spaceplane permanently in orbit. Ore and fuel cells can equally well be used by planes or rockets.

Fair enough, but I haven't encountered any planes that use ores. The whole setup can be fairly heavy (the new 1.25 m parts make it better). I'm sure some planes use ISRU parts, but I haven't seen any online that use them.

[Hotaru]

That's a bit selective isn't it? I'll give you fairings, heatshields and possibly service bays. Now that ion gliders aren't really feasible, xenon is only really useful once you get to space, whether that's by rocket or plane. Improved heating and reentry applies to either - unless you were planning to leave that shiny spaceplane permanently in orbit. Ore and fuel cells can equally well be used by planes or rockets.

It's still a fair point: however you categorize which parts are useful for what, 1.0 definitely gave us a lot of nice new stuff to play with beyond Kerbin's atmosphere.

Me, I find the fact that we're continuing to get new stuff at all encouraging. Squad could easily have said "OK, KSP is finished, victory declared, no more new features, just bug fixes and optimization from now on" after the 1.0 release; instead, they've made a point of continuing to add new parts and functionality to the game. So far most of the post-1.0 additions have been largely plane-centric (though not all: we've also got the Vector, the mini ISRU, and the Asteroid Day mod), but it's not too unreasonable to expect more space stuff in future. At the very least we know we'll be getting RoverDude's new antennas in 1.1.

I'm still wary of anything like the Goliath that's basically useless for anything except subsonic aircraft, and I'm still disappointed about the Mk1 cockpit business, but (memory issues notwithstanding) on the whole I'd rather see more new stuff getting added than less.

I also have to disagree with everybody who says the buoyancy work was superfluous: water landing (intentional and otherwise) is certain to crop up in any space program, so making it something vaguely resembling realistic seems like a good idea to me (and, unlike the parts, the buoyancy improvement has no memory footprint). On top of that, it opens the door to exploration of submarine biomes not just on Kerbin, but on Laythe and Eve as well--not unlike some real-life proposals for the exploration of the ice moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Submarines on Kerbin might be amusing, but I'm really looking forward to putting my first one in the oceans of Laythe.

[Glaran K'erman]

I will admit I shared the opinion of the OP for a brief time, but I gave it some thought and I really think everything is just fine. It appears to be SQUAD is just laying a complete foundation first, as one would normally do on any large project anywhere, before making more specialized and area-only updates. Makes sense to have a good model for buoyancy, thermal, and atmo (alongside working, bug-free, physics in general) before you make beautiful planets and parts. Why go exploring if the experience would be a giant, ill-working, let down. Dev's can take all the time they need to get out a good product IMO, everything will come in due time.

[moogoob]

I'm sure all I say has been mentioned before, but as I see it:

-Aerobraking at Jool and Eve has theoretically been fixed (though since introduced to the Tylo Slingshot, I don't think I'll be doing a Jool aerobrake any time soon)

-New engine (one quarter of a Mammoth with awesome gimbal and placement properties)

-Many small overall UI changes, like the camera double-click mouselook (which also handily disables the Green Mouseover Glow)

-Things now float in water

-Parachutes turn red when going too fast, and can be un-deployed if accidentally staged

-Radiators now work, in theory

-Hollow structural fuselages!!!

Plus, 1.1 will bring the promised probe changes, which will be a game-changer for interplanetary missions with its antenna requirements.

That said, a few more LF+O rocket engines would be appreciated for variety - at least, a mid-level size-1 engine between the LV-T30 and the 909, like a size-1 skipper. A bigger, size 2 hollow structural fuselage (multiple lengths) for interstage stuff would be great, too.

[herbal space program]

You have a point. I was really only thinking of how to prolong time on the surface. But yeah, planets do need more varied and interesting things to do.

My own fantasy would be to have executing all those orbital scan/surface contracts actually involve finding stuff. Let’s say you first get a contract to do temperature scans of the Mun at 3g-7608z. When you execute that contract successfully, you’ll sometimes, not always be told that you noted sme kind of an anomaly at a specific surface location. This will automatically trigger a surface exploration contract at that location that requires you to do some rover exploration to scout the area. When you successfully complete that, you’ll identify the one exact spot where the anomaly lies. That in turn will trigger a surface sampling (or better yet ore drilling) contract that will ultimately unearth *something*. “Something†could be some sort of unobtainium ore that perhaps lets you create an income stream or unlock some specific advanced technology. Alternately, it could be some kind of alien artifact that does the same thing, or that leads you to explore in a different location. Heck, it could even be some kind of humorous easter egg, like the Bob’s Big Boy statue with Dr. Evil in it! OK, that would be too cheap, but you get the idea! Having *some* kind of reward that goes beyond just the rep, science, and cash would make grinding through all that stuff immensely more fun IMO. I also think it could be implemented fairly well without all that much added effort from the devs.

Edited November 13, 2015 by herbal space program

[Legendary Emu]

The kerbal universe seems too perfect. Kerbal spaceships, once built and extensively tested, can have nothing go wrong with them. Kerbals don't need food or air, nor need to worry about radiation or muscle atrophy. Every single thing that can go wrong happens because of user error or the kraken, and I think that takes away from the game.