On eXploration, astronomy, random bodies and other overhauls

[monamipierrot]

Hello,

this is a open letter to KSP developers and to KSP core fans and modders about some general overhauls and improvings of KSP which may included in a future new major release (2.0?).
I am perfectly aware that this in part violates some of the "what not to suggest" list proposed some time ago by KasperVid, but I still think it is worth the pain.

Also, I perfectly know that some of the proposed improves will require unprecedent overhaul efforts to game designers, meaning tons more of man-hours of programming and testing, as well as a lot of money and time. If I propose it is because I strongly think it is worth this effort, and it could bring this game from being one of the best of the decade, to one of the best EVER.

I gave a brief look at the "suggestions" in this forum thread. Most of them are about parts or other game features improvent, or just about some aesthetical thing, which I am afraid I am not that interested with. Very few suggestions are about a complete overhaul in the Game design and few take in consideration its details. A very few of them anyway contained something you will find here as well and I tried to elaborate them my way.
Main improvements and overhauls for future KSP
I think KSP in the current state is a raw diamond. I'm not criticizing developers in other way than using the 1.0.x number for the last 6 months versions. KSP is still far from being "completed" and this is great news for everybody.
The overhauls or improvements I propose for the new 2.0 version of KSP are these (I will see only some of them in detail):
Noob/kids/scenarios/tutorial mode
Let's face reality: KSP is a very HARD game, and recent updates (0.90 and 1.0.x) made it even harder. We definitely need some deep if not radical improvement in the way KSP is presented to both noob "serious" and to casual/young players.

When I started playing back in 0.23 it was very hard to find out even the basics of ignite or manouvering your 1st rocket. It was really frustrating: I literally spent hours in understand it, and I am the patient/"smart" of player. Things didn't improve in latest releases.

When I recently had to explain basic KSP to some 8-11 years old kids, they understood all of it in few minutes, only because they had a teacher behind them. One of them even hooked on the game (her mother still somehow hates me). If those kids had been alone with the game they couldn't do NOTHING in literally days of playing and there would have been NO HOPE they wouldn't quit the game in maybe just a few minutes. This is a big goof IMHO. However I have many fantasies but no serious concrete idea on how to solve this. I bet there's plenty of ways anyway and KSP developers should redirect lot of efforts in this direction.

Also, KSP has... NO MANUAL??? Or a simple "How to get started" guide. This is hard to believe. There are people out there who don't go to the toilet without a manual! We almost completely rely on the user generated wiki or on video tutorials! this has to be solved.
Localization
No me puedo creer que un juego inventado en México por una mayoría de programadores mexicanos aún no tenga una versión en español!

An opening to some of the most important languages (Spanish, French, German, Chinese, Japanese...) is a must in order to widen to the potential young and casual public which KSP lacks mostly. Kids may love Kerbals if they could understand what they say!

Multiplayer

Sorry for coming again on the subject. I will not treat this with any depth. I only want to stress out that developers should keep the multiplayer option open, which means that they should include in the code basic function to manage many players connecting to the same universe, and a time-management system, as well as examining some online service to helping multiplayer and massive multiplayer beeing a reality.

AI and automation

Automation of vehicles and very basic decision making should be included as soon as possible to help the player in otherwise repetitive manouevers and missions. E.g. some Mechjeb-like modes could be unlocked after a pilot has succesfully gained experience in some manouevres, and some automated hardware (such as the Mechjeb modeuls) will be available as soon as the player correctly manage to perform them once or a few number of times. AI should be developed also to improve the "multiplayer" concept (the AI is the other player, or the AI replace players which can't play in some realtime running game)

The XXXX connection

I'm a huge fan of XXXX (eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, eXterminate) games such the Civilization / Alpha centauri / Master of Orion sagas. The "eXpand" feature is already built in the current game core concept, and it could hardly be better. The "eXploit" one is also beginning to be included with the career concept and with the mining thing (more of it would do no harm, anyway). The "eXterminate" one refers to the warfare nature of such XXXX games, which is not really that needed in KSP type of game. Anyway, the cooperative/competitive mode with humans/AIs should be integrate sooner or later in KSP, linking to the multiplayer thing already being discussed.

What I REALLY REALLY care of and miss is the "eXploration" thing, which I'll discuss in the next point.

The eXplore overhaul

How can the "eXplore" thing have been left almost completely out of a spacefare game? The reason is that KSP started as a pure sandbox game without any restriction (unlike frequently compared game Minecraft).

Career mode had been criticized by old players because it violated this "free" style game. However this was a perspective issue: it has been career mode that started out an actual game out of a great but experimental toy which was KSP before 0.24 That was a great move, the greatest of all, and introduced the "eXploit" concept in the game.

Still, the game almost completely lack a serious "eXplore" feature and this is the biggest of all KSP issues, by far. It is like building a fantastic game about car racing, creating a great graphical and physical engine with a lot of depth and great gameplay interface, in which you can drive in a detailed world with your great F1/rally/custombuilt car, and then failing to include actual car races in it.
Look at the 2 of the most known and praised XXXX games listed above: they are about spacefaring and spaceexploring. That's not a coincidence: exploration of space is something that inspired generations of humans in many many decades now. eXploration is also a key feature in most game genres with more depthness, including RPG games such as Fallout.

Where did KSP failed in exploiting the "eXplore" thing? By not including two major features,each of which could be considered an entire overhaul on its own, but which in my opinion are strongly connected and almost part of the same whole: the "astronomy" overhaul, and the "random procedural generated bodies" overhaul.

Astronomy overhaul [EDIT: some comments refer at this as "fog-of-war" feature]

In a current KSP game you are given from the beginning full knowledge of the entire Kerbol System, i.e. of the entire known universe. We already know where each planet and body is, with the exception of asteroids. We also can have a complete knowledge of distant bodies' surfaces and many scientific details, and actually see and read them in map mode, without even having built our 1st rocket. While some of these aspects are somewhat consistent with real life actual conditions (astronomy and solar system knowledge were already very advanced when the 1st space missions lift off our asses from the Earth surface), this still is a huge spoiler to a game which is "scaled down" from actual reality to be more FUN.

An actual "ASTRONOMY" and "PLANETARY SCIENCE" system should been implement in a way that the game gradually discover bodies as well as scientific details and images about them, beginning from a starting point in which we know of the existence of very few or no bodies, or we have only fuzzy info about them (fuzzy images, fuzzy orbital and physics details, inaccurate scientific datas...).
Advances in Astronomy, Planetary Science, KSC buildings, space telescopes and - even more important - actual Exploration Missions gradually improve our understanding of such objects (including Kerbin), gradually filling and improving our actual Map of the Universe, facts about bodies, and also bodies/aircraft orbit understanding and visualization. [A silly and fun way to start this in an actual game would be to send a Kerbal out of the KSC buildings and "EVA report" looking up, discovering a very big fireball in the sky and call it "Kerbol" or whichever name we give to it.

Practically speaking, this of course will not be as easy to implement as the "fog-of-war"-like features in XXXX games (undiscovered part of the planet/universe is blacked and unkwnown to the player) and it maybe requires a whole rethinking of the actual displaying mode of the universe both in Map mode and in actual normal view mode, in a way that the player can't have spoliers in any way. E.g. an actual Map of Kerbin (that is: the Map view mode) can be unlocked only after having "understand" that it is round (e.g. as soon as a Kerbal reaches some height, or a probe reaches some distance from the KSC). A partially darkened map should then be displayed, till all parts of the planet are discovered through actual missions and observations. It would also be great to have different layers of knowledge about map (from fuzzy to more detailed).

However I have dozens more ideas about what this whole thing should actually look like. too many to list them here.

Procedural random generated bodies Overhaul

The stock KSP bodies are great, really. However, if we implement the Astronomy Overhaul, and we keep the KSP stock bodies, we lose 50% of its purpose, and 99% of it beginning from the second career we play.

That is the reason we should give the option (well, it should be the actual default option) to start a Non-Kerbol universe. At the start of a new (career) game, the program generates a new procedural random Solar System, either based on fixed default balanced parameters (to make sure we keep the pace and difficoult level of the game as close as possible to stock KSP) or on manually tweaked parameters (to have very different solar systems, maybe harder or easier to explore than stock one). Kerbin also should be somewhat random, both on physical properties (but only very slightly differing from stock ones) and in its map and biome configuration.

Some have pointed out that random generation could last hours. Well, if this is a real issue for some CPU, then a workaround could be building a whole online library of already built "balanced default" - and maybe manually selected - downloadable solar systems. I bet it would be easy ot host literally dozens of them to make sure each player will not to come back to an old one.

Procedural Wiki

If we implement the Astronomy overhaul and/or the Procedural Random bodies overhaul, we must put our hands on a procedural custum Wiki, i.e. one that slowly unfold and rectify as more details are known about the Universe, and which is able to display procedural generated data from each random generated universe. The concept can be expanded to include the technological improvement (articles about parts anc technical concepts will be revealed when needed) The wiki will definitely already include fixed articles about gameplay, ksp, kerbals, and general physics.

The wiki could be available offline, "in game", and/or online (each article is automatically generated and updated from the current game status and from the savegame and planetary seed, which may be stored in the server in case one wants to read some article when not playing).

I used the term Wiki however I fully understand that only part of it can be generated by users.

Conclusion

I hope this huge amount of ideas and suggestions will not scare developers. I hope some modder could try to develop some proof-of-concept to convince developers to take this seriously. I would love to know your opinions, even the most criticizing ones.

Edited April 20, 2016 by monamipierrot
The text was corrupted

[juanml82]

And pleeeeeease a graphic overhaul.

There is a wiki coming with 1.1.
I kind of like most ideas. Maybe the "Kids mode" could be a difficulty option (not called "kids", of course) kind of set before 0.90: no heating, basic-placeholder aerodynamics and some sort of guidance overlay for common maneuvers (ie, taking off). Heating and aerodynamics can be disabled now, but you have delve into the debug menu, instead of hitting a shiny, big, "easy mode", button.

As for an astronomy mode, well, it would break immersion if Kerbals didn't know a lot of their solar system before they start to fire rockets, but some data could be hidden from view until either a probe gets send or an expensive telescope (say, a Kerbal version of the Hubble) gets built. So you start the game knowing, for instance:
Moho, Eve, Duna, Dres and Jool exist. Eeloo's existence is still theoretical at this point (say, Pluto before 1930. I don't think it breaks immersion). All moons except Gilly are also known. Eve, Jool and Duna are known to have an atmosphere, but details are fuzzy. Whether Laythe's has an atmosphere is a matter of debate. Maybe Pol and Bop aren't known either, similar to how the Voyager and Pioneer probes discovered plenty of moons.

So you need to put a telescope (and unlock the technology for it) in LKO to unlock a lot of this information (for instance, confirmation of Eeloo and Gilly's existence and orbits) and you don't get information on the atmospheric composition nor surface maps of any body until you don't send a ship there. This may encourage going "probes first", or sending manned orbiters which may or may not include landers, because you don't know for which conditions the landers are to be designed for (hey, right now you can't see that information ingame either!). There is a mod that does something like this, but claiming so would be like not criticizing The Elder's Scroll's Oblivion's leveling system because there are mods for it.

Of course, this works best in procedural generated solar systems, as anyone could get all that information from a walkthrough on the Internet anyway on the fixed Kerbol System.

And critically, the game needs something to do once you finally land somewhere. Survey contracts work a bit, but they also get tiresome fast and, let's face it, by the time you land in Tylo, you don't need any of the contract rewards. Maybe it needs a colonization stage, or some other gameplay activity.

[monamipierrot]

[quote name='juanml82']
And critically, the game needs something to do once you finally land somewhere. Survey contracts work a bit, but they also get tiresome fast and, let's face it, by the time you land in Tylo, you don't need any of the contract rewards. Maybe it needs a colonization stage, or some other gameplay activity.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for your reply. As you put it, random procedural solar system would add much more sense to the astronomical pack, and I would say also viceversa.
Your point is good (we do know enough to be interested in the subject but too little to actually know what to do exactly before some more exploration and science). However, the quoted statement has its answer in my post. What you have to do is TO EXPLORE. That's the reason I would without doubt start with some minimal knowledge of the Universe, and let the most obvious "discoveries" were something like a how-to tutorial for basic interface usage. (To discover Kerbol you just have to have a EVA report in Kerbin), to find out Kerbin is round you need to go far away from KSC, and so on...)
I saw literally dozens of good (and even not so good) games that rely on this very simple "storytelling" structure: know just the bits at the beginning, and then discover more and more as you advance and refine your skills.
The colonization thing is accessory and needed if you want to further discover more and more about outer planets.
Or saying in othe way: you would love to colonize the Mun so you can build there a better shielded telescope to sound the very deeps of space. You'll need to put your ass to Duna to harvest lot of precious fuel for interplanetary missions. And you just need a base on many bodies to have it easier to move around them and science the f**k out of them.
But the key is that the player should actively desire more and more knowledge of the Universe (and Kerbin also is part of this mistery: some early exploration will be on Kerbin remote biomes and regions), and achieving this desire is very simple: just show a little bit of it (a phantom planet a drunk astronomer swear was there last night, glimpse of some liquid thing on Eve's surface, something that shields Kerbol light with annoying regularity, scientific debate on if this body is actually twin planets, and so on...).
Mystery will be the real reason to wake up every day and climb on a rocket (or build better crafts, or accept "boring" contracts, or aim to some specific technology, or hiring more scientists...)
As I see it: the general 1.0.x game balance and gameplay is already almost perfect for the task of implementing my suggestions of Astronomical and Procedural overhauls, and don't need any real improvement other than performance ones because the kind of games that these new features would enable would be really gigantic.

Also I read TODAY about the KSPedia. Sorry I really didn't know it existed. Much better then: I hope the developers will put on it the right adjustments to grant future compatibility with procedural generated knowledge.

[322997am]

Full support. Gonna rep you. But one thing I kinda would like to add on is that the procedural bodies can be in fact used to make moar solar systems. If a star generates then a certain # of planets can then generate in X amount of radius. And stars can only generate 10 k km from eeloo orbit. Btw, multiplayer is probably going to be seen in 2017 or maybe 2018 at best. Multiplayer implication into a physics game is going to take INSANE amounts of coding and looking at that it took them at best 9 months to port the game to u5(don't rush this is not an offensive comment) it will take them waaay longer to implement multiplayer.

[tater]

I agree, entirely, OP, and about 1.5 years ago, my first few posts were all very similar to this one.

The number one issue with "career" is the lack of exploration due to everything being known. Science, instead of being points, should actually do something. Mappers that actually map (without them, your view of a given target world is what you'd see through a telescope on Kerbin), for example. Have some stunning, interesting stuff on some worlds.

If generating planets that are really interesting is not possible as semi-random constructs, then set some standards, and let players submit new planets to be added to a database that the game pulls from. Such a database could also rescale them (as many mods rescale things) within some range such that even if you've see world X in a previous career, it's not going to be the same size. Once the pool of planets is large enough, you might not see repeats again.

[monamipierrot]

On 19/1/2016 at 4:48 AM, tater said:

I agree, entirely, OP, and about 1.5 years ago, my first few posts were all very similar to this one.

I would love to read them

[tater]

I'll see if I can dig them up. I've pushed for a randomized solar system with "fog of war" for a while so that "science" instead of being points, gains the player data needed to design and complete missions. I.e.: learn about an atmosphere so that you know what kind of descent vehicle is required, etc.

BTW, instead of fully "procedural" worlds, the game could just as well have a library of vetted, hand-made worlds to chose from, and grab a certain number to create variant solar systems. In addition, it could scale the planets and distances between them so that you might see Duna again, but it could be anything from 1:1 with stock Duna, to 6x larger. The code to place worlds might include certain flags so it's not fully random (no ice worlds in close solar orbits, etc).

[NotAgain]

On ‎19‎/‎11‎/‎2015 at 1:59 PM, monamipierrot said:

At the start of a new (career) game, the program generates a new procedural random Solar System

I like this Idea a lot, but I'm really fond of the stock planets. How about keeping the stock system, and having only a few procedural bodies?

[tater]

15 minutes ago, NotAgain said:

I like this Idea a lot, but I'm really fond of the stock planets. How about keeping the stock system, and having only a few procedural bodies?

The default can be to use the stock solar system. This is really about career/science replay value. Think in terms of players who have landed everywhere already.

What's the point of going to the same places, particularly when you already know exactly what kind of craft it takes to get there?

If you've only played in the stock solar system, here's something to try. Get Sigma Dimensions (mod) and set it to make everything 2-3X larger and farther apart (there is a 2X mode that does this as well). This works perfectly well with nothing but stock parts, in many ways you'll barely notice a difference---except all your notions about how much ship it takes to get places will be entirely wrong. Play career or science mode for a bit. It will be like when you first started as far as rocket design goes (in terms of size, not basic good design).

That will give you a sense of exploration from the craft design POV, just not the solar system (because you'll still know what everything looks like having been there before).

[monamipierrot]

16 hours ago, tater said:

That will give you a sense of exploration from the craft design POV, just not the solar system (because you'll still know what everything looks like having been there before).

Mmmm. This is curious. After your use of the word "exploration" in this way, I had a terrible doubt and went to check the English dictionary, as well as the Italian dictionary for "esplorazione" (I'm Italian) to see if there were some differences. And there were! 

ENGLISH (bold mine):

1. the action of exploring an unfamiliar area. -or- the action of searching an area for natural resources.
2. thorough examination of a subject.

ITALIAN (translation, bold mine)

1. Perlustrazione di luoghi sconosciuti con finalità scientifiche ("Reconnaissance of unknown places for scientific reasons")
2. Ricognizione per valutare consistenza e dislocazione delle forze nemiche ("Patrol to evaluate location and dimension of enemy forces")
3. Esame a scopo diagnostico di una parte del corpo ("Diagnostical test of a body part")

The 1st definitions are interesting, let's stick to them. In English it uses the term "unfamiliar", while in italian it is "unknown". The 1st example in the Italian dictionary is "Geographical explorations", i.e. those expeditions to the poles, to remote places of central Africa or South America, and of course Magellan's expedition (but also Columbus one, althou it was not that "scientific"), and so on. They went to places which were not "unfamiliar". They were completely unknown. Nobody had a map, and nobody knew if wethere there were a volcan on the South Pole or a island on the North Pole, a giant lake at the top of Congo river, or a unknown civilization in South America. Certainly nobody knew that America and Australia did exist, and that were inhabitated.

I would like to explore the unknown, and I am little interested in exploring the unfamiliar, to put it rough.

Cause that is what I call EXPLORATION. If I misuse the word, sorry, my fault.

 

[tater]

No, you are using the word as it is most typically used, I was using it more loosely.

That said, you can explore the solar system, explore the atom, or explore the mechanisms of spaceflight.

What I meant was that in the post I was responding to, the lack of a random solar system removed the real sense of exploration (a partially unknown solar system), and only allowed for the player to explore new ways of getting around in space. For the player, some of the "exploration" is rocket science. If that makes any sense.

BTW, assuming you are Italian, anything not to be missed in Northern Italy? We only have a week, but we stumbled into the opportunity to use the vacation home of a friend we couldn't turn down  .

[monamipierrot]

Fine for me!

Maybe it is not that OT (still you're going to EXPLORE Northern Italy). And no, I' don't live in Italy (I live in Barcelona), but yes I am from Northern Italy. So you asked anything not to be missed?

Mmmm I would say nothing at all, with maybe the exception for the secret delights of Verona (the only city where Romeo & Juliet could exist), the classical architecture of Vicenza, the Scrovegni chapel in Padova, Da Vinci's Last Supper in Milano, the museums of Torino, the crazy nightlife in Bologna, the Renaissance cities of Ferrara and Mantova, the beautiful lakes (Como, Garda, Maggiore), the Alps (ranging from the stunning Mont blanc / Monte rosa through the magical South-Tirol to the beautiful Dolomites), the mass seaside disconights of Rimini and the Adriatic sea, or opposite, the flower-filled hidden seaside of Liguria and Cinqueterre, the old cities of Bergamo, Brescia, Parma, Reggio Emilia, and Modena (the World Capital of good food, but if you are the engineer-type of KSP fan, you may also appreciate it as the World Capital of motors and visit Ferrari and Maserati museums), the always imitated classical villas of Treviso countryside, the natural village-with-cypresses filled gentle slopes of any of the Prealps hills, uncountable little old cities or old villages all over the region, as well as a little-known city I bet you never heard of and that some isolated folk out there claims it is the most beautiful in the world: Venice.

Apart from the above... I would say nothing!  (if you don't have enough with the North, remember that Toscana and Firenze are literally less than 1 hour of car/train from Bologna, and from there, you have the whole Central and Southern Italy waiting for you!)

Take my advice: if you live by a city, you may just move by train and public transport. The two most farthest apart cities in the list above are less than 5 hours from each other by train, while the average being 1-2 hours, and sometimes as little as 20'. If you don't, then a car may be also good: in 4 hours you can reach every corner of Northern Italy, and maybe a little more to reach some remote Alps valleys. Also, with car you can visit Tuscany and jump from one city to the next in few minutes. In any case you have to understand that distances are very small compared with other countries so you may take advantage of this, visiting 2 or more cities in one day.

Remember to plant a Kerbal flag.

I never heard of someone not having a great time in Italy. Have a great time you too!!!!

[tater]

Thank you, we will try. We have 2 kids with us, so night life is less likely. It is my understanding we will have the use of a car as well, which was part of the reason it was an opportunity would could not miss, even with a limited schedule. We will indeed do our best to explore  .

[Andem]

Aaannd here's the problem with the OPs suggestions. I hate them. I despise them. I would stop playing KSP if they were implemented. I know there are those that agree with me out there, and due to the nature of these suggestions I would see this more at home in the add on discussion forum. I'm fine with people enjoying these as mods, even official SQAUD mods. But under no circumstances should these things be in the core game that I payed hard earned money for. KSP as it is now is a more linear experiance. KSP gets easy as you learn it. That doesn't mean things change when you throw a different roster of planets at you. Please, SQAUD, don't do this.

--EDIT--

I wasn't clear above, the only ideas I disagree with are the points of randomized planets and not having detected them yet, etc.

Edited April 12, 2016 by Andem

[tater]

15 minutes ago, Andem said:

Aaannd here's the problem with the OPs suggestions. I hate them. I despise them. I would stop playing KSP if they were implemented. I know there are those that agree with me out there, and due to the nature of these suggestions I would see this more at home in the add on discussion forum. I'm fine with people enjoying these as mods, even official SQAUD mods. But under no circumstances should these things be in the core game that I payed hard earned money for. KSP as it is now is a more linear experiance. KSP gets easy as you learn it. That doesn't mean things change when you throw a different roster of planets at you. Please, SQAUD, don't do this.

Given that this would be an additional game mode, what's not to like about having the ability to actually explore, vs making the same craft over, and over again?

[Andem]

2 hours ago, tater said:

Given that this would be an additional game mode, what's not to like about having the ability to actually explore, vs making the same craft over, and over again?

Well, we clearly have different interpretations of actually exploring.

As for making the same craft over and over, that's a 100% by-case argument. I personally never use the same craft across saves. I don't have a craft developing or testing save so everything is 110% original per save. Not everyone does that, it's entirely up to them to make that decision.

It seems to me that it work better if we had a massive library of prebuilt solar systems for people to screw around with. What's that? Kopernicus? Oh right, we have that. If we could lob Kopernicus into the stock download and provide a place to install planet packs, I would be happy. Random generation is difficult to build in general. Now make that generation make sense. Now make it fun to explore. Now build that system within a small, limited box. That is what SQAUD is being asked to do here. Likely, all the code would need to be reworked AGAIN. This Unity 6 or 7 update would fundamentally change KSP for the worse in my opinion, but you clearly disagree.

 

Edited April 12, 2016 by Andem

[tater]

I'm not actually proposing random generation, though OP is. I suggested an alternative where there is a library of vetted planets, and you can elect to have a new Kerbol system made of those worlds, and perhaps those worlds with a small scaling added. This, combined with "fog of war" would actually require the player to explore. Yes, you'd know the existence of most planets and moons at the start, but you would not have well-resolved images of any of them, and your data on their atmospheres would be largely confined to composition, not the specifics needed for landing there (i.e.: Venus in RL was a big ? before the Venera probe).

Different people would have different ideas, but it's certainly worth discussing.

[Andem]

31 minutes ago, tater said:

I'm not actually proposing random generation, though OP is. I suggested an alternative where there is a library of vetted planets, and you can elect to have a new Kerbol system made of those worlds, and perhaps those worlds with a small scaling added. This, combined with "fog of war" would actually require the player to explore. Yes, you'd know the existence of most planets and moons at the start, but you would not have well-resolved images of any of them, and your data on their atmospheres would be largely confined to composition, not the specifics needed for landing there (i.e.: Venus in RL was a big ? before the Venera probe).

Different people would have different ideas, but it's certainly worth discussing.

Well, in that case, I would be fine with that. Fog of war is something I want in KSP to a point, EG., you land on Duna, do some science, scan it, now you have access to all the info in the tracking station.

[tater]

I was partially just thinking about the new player experience of seeing the Mun (or wherever) the first time. i personally didn't look at any of the planets until I visited them.

[monamipierrot]

4 hours ago, Andem said:

Aaannd here's the problem with the OPs suggestions. I hate them. I despise them. I would stop playing KSP if they were implemented. I know there are those that agree with me out there

Now this is becoming frustrating for me. At the risk of sounding childish, I really would love an explanation for this kind of reaction to my original proposal, or to this comment on another one: 

 

Expecially explain me:

1. how exactly could this new game experience would ruin ksp? till the point of "despise" it?

2. and why don't you think that it shouldn't be just a mode you can select at the beginning of the game (ok, let it not be the default mode)? 

I mean: if you say that it would be a waste of developer's time, with the risk of undermine some original code or other technical reasons, I could live with it. If you say that it would disrupt the social experience of having the same universe Felipe was talking about, I understand. I don't agree, but I understand. What I can't understand is that one DISPISE it or "stop reading further" as another user commented.

Ok, so you don't like that you can't see planets at the beginning of the game, maybe because of a matter of realism bias (one should perfectly know their solar system if they already builded a Space Center, wether he is a human or a little green alien), or for a generic dislike of uncertainty, lack of information, and/or  consequent randomness. I can still live with it - althou I must say I am puzzled by this because, by reading forum sections, FB posts and so on, I thought I shared many interests and tastes of most KSP players. 

Anyway, while I would really appreciate some of these explanations, I'll explain how I see the dialog windows at the beginning of a version of KSP that could embrace most if not all other proposals in this and in the other thread.

At the start, you are prompted for a New Game.

You then pass throu a series of dialog windows (or parallel windows):

FIRST Select game progression mode:

1. Career
2. Science
3. Sandbox
4. [whatever else they could invent]

SECOND Select Universe type (all options except 4 will take to THIRD window)

1. Kerbol System [default]
2. Select from library
3. Random System (default parameters)
4. Random System (manual options)

4 - Window dialog for RANDOM SYSTEM MANUAL OPTIONS (both exact values or fuzzy intervals can be selected):

• Solar system scale and bodies scale (0-10, where 4-6 is the default, 5 generates a Kerbol-like system, and, say, 9 is a Sun system-like size)
• Number of bodies (0-100, where 12-20 is the default)
• Body anomalies (0-10 where 5 is like Kerbol system, 0 produce perfectly round
• Orbit anomalies (0-100, where 50 is like Kerbol, 60 is like Sun, 0 is round orbits with 0º inclination, and 100 can generate extreme orbits)
• Impossible bodies and orbit on/off (e.g. a body orbiting another one with a smaller SOI), default is off
• Kerbin may be a moon on/off
• max nested moons (0-2 where 0 = no moons, 1 [default] = moons have no submoon, 2 means moons can have moons)
• min/max deltavs to reach orbit and closest/farthest/average body
• Kerbin is Earth-like on/off (you may want to start on a desolated moon instead!)
• Body collision checker on/off (if off 2 bodies could collide. In that very remote case, one or both of them could explode and be destroyed, or be merged in a bigger one - expect bugs!).

[another cool way to present for generator options could be using (pseudo)astrophisical parameters, such as Star-type, star age, chemical spectrum, etc.: each of these parameters would correspond to one of the above options]

THIRD Select fog-of-war type

1. NONE: Everything is known, everywhere. I would call this the "Stranded God Mode".
2. HAZE: All bodies are known, not their details [default. - and similar to current KSP version]
3. MIST: Some bodies are known; some of them are fuzzy; some others are still invisible.
4. FOG:Nothing is known. You don't know why you can see if all lights are turned off. You don't even know Kerbin is flat or round, let alone having a complete map of it!  
5. FOG-OF-WAR (experimental): Nothing is known. PLUS, when you reveal some info and images of some body, this could grow old: if something changes on the surface (e.g. weather, volcanic activity, seasons.... and enemy positions! ) your map vision will be NOT updated and will show old inexact informations and images. [This would be REALLY HARD to implement, but it may be key in a fully functional competitive/war future multiplayer version of KSP]

Of course, all kind of fogs require at least a few more hardware parts (e.g. lenses, deep scanning sensors....) or buildings, which should be allowed in non-fog type of game. They would have some function even in NON-FOG game type (mainly science function).

Tell me your thoughts about this. 

thanks!

Piero

 

[Andem]

All right, I concede that hate and despise are grossly inaccurate to my actual opinion. 

I also concede that a seperate game mode would be... Fine.

Those are both justifications for personal opinions of Dev team members and community members which I think are justified. I mean, look at the RSS/RO community. Playing a 100% different game than the rest of us there is a clear divide, with very little overlap. Now, the post you are referring to is saying that he could not take the argument seriously due to the concept of discovering the sun. I also find it a bit silly, too silly to find a home in KSP.

The reason that it seems everyone wants this is because the people who don't have what they want keep asking for it, while guys like me tend to sit happily in front of KSP for hours on end near-perfectly happy with what we have now.

The most important reason I dislike random generation in games is that it takes years to get right. Minecraft's terrain system was a mish mash of three different projects Notch had previously worked on and adapted and tweaked for another year before implementing. On the other end, I used to play a small indie game that procedural generated the dungeons you fought through. Notice I said used to play. On four smaller saves, I got trapped in a dungeon that had no enemies on it. There was no way to progress, backtracking was blocked until I killed everything, etc. This got pretty frustrating, but I pressed on. Then my main save which I had poured two years into, built an impossible dungeon. I was devastated. I uninstalled the game and haven't played it since. I know, unlikely for KSP, but a generated experiance will never match a hand crafted one. This is why I would embrace a library of planets that you could choose, because I already do that with Kopernicus.

Fog of war. Oh fog of war, what a troublesome and fickle mechanic.

I want a Haze of Conflict, not a fog of war. Basically, you know where all bodies are. You can see blurry images in the tracking station. Upgrades and collecting science unlocks all the values we can see in the tracking station nowadays. Simpler, more Kerbal.

Edited April 13, 2016 by Andem

[Atlas2342]

@Andem agree with you 100%.

IMO I like the idea of the astronomy overhaul that planetary information should be unknown in the start but i was thinking that you could still see the planets in the tracking station only that by going to those planets, you would learn more about them. As for the random system, meh, i dont really like it. For example, certain crafts would only work in some systems and not in others. Some of the suggestions are ok, albeit with a few changes. Some of these suggestions might complicate things for new players and make it harder to learn....Also the 1.1 update will have KSPedia so there's that...

[tater]

On April 13, 2016 at 9:07 PM, Andem said:

I want a Haze of Conflict, not a fog of war. Basically, you know where all bodies are. You can see blurry images in the tracking station. Upgrades and collecting science unlocks all the values we can see in the tracking station nowadays. Simpler, more Kerbal.

OP is in the full random, and unrealistic "unknown" camp. That doesn't make randomized bad, it just that particular mechanic not ideal.

I would want realistic fog of war, nothing more, nothing less.

So, using the extant Kerbol system as an example, you start out knowing:

The mass and orbits of all the planets (Kerbol system is tiny, so it's implausible to not have a decent mass for even Eeloo).

The rough atmospheric composition of each, and perhaps a range of possible top of atmosphere data.

You would have pretty good maps of the Mun and Minmus---but the sides facing away would be totally unknown in terms of features.

You'd know that Duna was red, and even that it had ice caps. Any images with much more detail than that would not exist.

You'd maybe only know the bigger Joolian moons, so maybe a couple are discovered going there.

[monamipierrot]

 

17 hours ago, Atlas2342 said:

Also the 1.1 update will have KSPedia so there's that...

For that specific reason I wrote about a dynamical in-game Wiki which may update whenever the player comes to know more facts about the Universe and its bodies.

Also, the same mechanics may be applied to the Technology tree: only known parts will be detailed, while future tech layers will be "fogged" with limited Wiki info.

A dynamic Wiki would be great also as a game log: each launch and mission would be properly registered in the Wiki, each Vessel type would have links to specific launches log, to the Parent Vessel (the previously saved craft), and to all its Sons (all the crafts that have been developed from the same craft save. Each Kerbal would have its own Wiki page with details of his launches and activities, the category "Dead Kerbals" would grow larger and larger...

I have no specific example in other games but I have no doubt that this design has been already implemented somewhere.

 

 

[Whirligig Girl]

On 4/11/2016 at 1:20 PM, tater said:

The default can be to use the stock solar system. This is really about career/science replay value. Think in terms of players who have landed everywhere already.

What's the point of going to the same places, particularly when you already know exactly what kind of craft it takes to get there?

If you've only played in the stock solar system, here's something to try. Get Sigma Dimensions (mod) and set it to make everything 2-3X larger and farther apart (there is a 2X mode that does this as well). This works perfectly well with nothing but stock parts, in many ways you'll barely notice a difference---except all your notions about how much ship it takes to get places will be entirely wrong. Play career or science mode for a bit. It will be like when you first started as far as rocket design goes (in terms of size, not basic good design).

That will give you a sense of exploration from the craft design POV, just not the solar system (because you'll still know what everything looks like having been there before).

Well if you want some new solar systems, Kopernicus packs have plenty of that. There's Alternis Kerbol Rekerjiggered, Uncharted Lands, and of course Real Solar System.