On eXploration, astronomy, random bodies and other overhauls

[monamipierrot]

On 17/4/2016 at 10:23 AM, AdmiralTigerclaw said:

If procedural system creation came before player asset automation, then you have a situation in which the player is eventually stuck doing every little maintenance task for their growing space agency until you reach a point where it becomes impossible to expand because all of your work is geared to just keeping your existing operations afloat. 

Maybe you think that Procedural Random Solar System = Bigger universe on a bigger game with longer careers, etc. Why? The default result should be a game of roughly same size and difficoult than current one. Of course this can and will be tweaked: for longer or shorter games

On 17/4/2016 at 10:23 AM, AdmiralTigerclaw said:

Really, I think that certain features and issues do need to be addressed in a logical order. 

Uh, let's see

On 17/4/2016 at 10:23 AM, AdmiralTigerclaw said:

Thing is...  Visual Content and cosmetic work is a different field of expertise from the gameplay code overhauls and bug fixes for new features.  They can literally be in production at the same time with other people on the team.  And really, you WANT them in production at the same time. 

So then... no logical order?

Now seriously, I got your point, and I understand it. But I still think that if Squad had to save money and time on something, that would be cosmetics, parts addition and - believe me or not - more "stock" bodies, and concentrate on expanding the game core, in the direction of eXploit (colonies, career, actual science, tech) and eXploration (fog-of-war, random solar system, dynamic wiki).

[monamipierrot]

On 17/4/2016 at 10:31 AM, KillAshley said:

in their current state i doubt squad know enough about their own terrain system to implement such a drastic overhaul. Since Novasilisko left all updates to planets have been full of errors, and frankly that spells doubt in everyone who knows about PQS manipulation

I might revive my idea about doing this myself though, so that you can at least have a pack that does it. I mean if you look at my UnchartedLands pack, which is generated completely procedurally, you can see there is promise..however it takes a lot of work

Ooooooooh! Almighty KillAshley, forgive me not to have recognized you!

Being the developer of Kopernicus makes you a semi-God; so it does being the developer of UnchartedLands; if I'm not bad with Maths that makes you a full GOD. Hail to you!

[Ok, now understand that I never installed any of your mods, but this is a issue of mine, not of yours, anyway by reading and seeing some images, I really love your effort to the point I would like to donate a not much more than symbolical amount, if possible. Really UnchartedLands images are AWESOME. I saw them last week for the 1st time and I had my mouth open all the time. I really long to try them but I'll wait for 1.1 to go out and the corresponding update for your mods]

Your words explain many things. Anyway I'm going to (morally) support you in any attempt to build some working full-random system for planets and solar system. (I give for granted that uncharted lands uses old heigth maps of the exising planets, doesn't it?)

Now, the question. What do you think about the fog-of-war (really I don't like this word, but I don't know if there's a better one) in KSP? I mean, from the technical point of view. I understand that this is a different expertise area from the generation/tweak of planets, but you may still be familiar with how game handles images, maps etc.

E.G. In map mode, would it be easy to arbitrarily reduce texture resolution in selected parts of a planet map, ranging from Pitch Black (or grey) of "undiscovered" areas through better and better layers, say 10-15 layers, each maybe 4x4 times better resolution than before till a full ground resolution? it would be enough to map a gas giant from 1 pixel image to the actual full resolution. (Still the game would miss a proper way to store info about level of discovery of each chunk of map without drying RAM, and even more difficoult, I guess, a proper method to calculate "what the player has discovered").

And what about entirely hiding bodies from map, or just their orbits?

Would it be prohibitively hard to try to mod this? (If possible at all?)

Thanks, again.

 

[monamipierrot]

On 18/4/2016 at 8:51 PM, Pthigrivi said:

the reason Squad ruled out procedural planets to begin with, which is that a single system allows players to have a common experience and lets them go online communicate with each other about what they've found and how to tackle a common set of problems.

I already addressed this idea before in some other thread. I understand this, but I still find it silly. If it had some consistency when the game needed to grow some supporting social environment (and nobody could prove the above worked), I doubt that NOW it still needs it. Now the game has a HUGE supporting environment, hundreds of tutorials and countless challenges.

And even if this strategy worked AND the game still needed it, do anybody really think you can't just add a "play in a random universe" button? If they implemented it, there could be different outcomes:

1. Vast majority of players would just play the stock SS. No hurt for the social connections.

2. Half of players would play stock SS. Half of them would play random. Social cohesion would still be granted by the Stock players core.

3. Vast majority of players would play random game. Go throw in the toilet the social thing, I was right!

Seriously, we already know that most players would play both. And I bet many of you think that playing Stock or playing in another SS would not result in a different Social cohesion.

What I'm trying to say is that this may be not out of debate NOW, and time has come to insist with Squad for this little revolution. If YOU agree, of course.

On 18/4/2016 at 8:51 PM, Pthigrivi said:

 Another thing to consider is how many players even make it to all the planets we already have? You and I have, plus a handful of regulars here who have played kerbal for ages. But most players barely make it past the Mun. For them what does it matter if there's 20 or 100 different planets that may or may not pop up?

Here I am, commander. As a maximimum I have sent tiny probes to closest planets, full stop. Want to know why I stopped? Because there's nothing to DISCOVER. The planets and moons are already there, there are even full maps on the web. 

I really lacked A LOT that kind of thrill that some eXploration videogames give me. And not only videogames (I really like to hike and discover some uncharted features in the mountains). I mean in KSP there was everything else: the challenge, the effort, the epic, etc. etc. Everything except real eXploration. The only reason rockets do exist!!!!

Still, when I plant a flag, I constantly feel like Scott. Hundreds of Amundsen players have already been there, and they even told me (thanks to your beloved social media ). I don't want to be always Scott. I want to be Kermundsen, sometimes. I really wonder how this does not affect many of you. Really, I'm not trolling, I am just puzzled .

Also, again, some of you thinks that procedural planets means MORE planets, BIGGER dimensions, BIGGER challenges. Same for the fog-of-war, by reading your lines, #Pthigrivi. I do not agree. We can make the game as big, as hard and as challenging as we want, and even make it easier, just by tweaking a very few parameters of the procedural generation.

So your last point, squeezing from it the maximum juice, reduces to "Come on, you have already plenty of planets. When you finish them, only then you may come back and complain". That's exactly the opposite of the real point. I don't want plenty of planets. I want MY OWN planet in MY OWN Solar System, with MY OWN challenges, maybe scaled down (or up) to my skills and general preferences.

On 18/4/2016 at 8:51 PM, Pthigrivi said:

I'd rather see players actually rewarded for things like brining and using rovers and planes and devising new strategies than fussing with lander permutations. 

That's curious. In a fog-of-war game you would DEFINITELY want to build more planes to map unknown regions of Kerbin; but you may also strongly need rovers or small hoppers to fine map some small portion of Mun in search of new biomes/science/ore or just better landing/base sites for the guys orbitin up there.

Fog-of-war would BOOST creativity and give you a reason to take your a*s to some distant body. I think it is even obvious.

 

 

[monamipierrot]

On 18/4/2016 at 10:28 PM, KosmonautwithacapitalK said:

For the "Kid's mode" idea, I think that there should be a dulled down mode but not way less complex like you are suggesting. One of the fun things about KSP is it's complexity. I am 14 now, and have been playing KSP for at least two years and the demo for longer, and I never really had problems and still don't.

Hi K,

welcome on board in this discussion. Let a guy which is almost the TRIPLE of your age say that he is glad that KSP didn't exist when he was 14, cause otherwise he would not have finished High School and not gone to the College, not to mention his PhD!

I have to somehow disagree with you on the hardship level of KSP. Yes you are young and I hail to you for fiddling with KSP since you was 10 (guess), however you have to understand that AT LEAST 95% of adults of my age out there just COULDN'T play KSP. And we are talking about almost all computer literate, most of them with college studies, and so on...

Yep, "Complex" is fun, you're completely right. "Complicated" is always less fun. "Brutally hard" is sometimes no fun.

Now, believe me or not, the three things are almost completely indipendent from each other. Something complex may be or not be complicated, and may be or not be hard.

Complexity gives an idea of how DEEP is something. And KSP is deep, indeed. You like the surface, but if you scratch it, you find something else, and so on.

Now things are complicated when you need time and tedious actions to grasp them and having them work. Some things in KSP are complicated. Unnecessarily complicated.

A hard thing is when it is difficoult to do. To lift 100kg is not complex, nor complicated. It is just hard. For someone it is impossible. Now, for everyday standards, KSP is - how can I say - BRUTALLY HARD?

Now, as you do, I like brutally hard things (btw, I got the "brutal" word from the hardest game mode in which I play the Android game "Plague", which happens to appears in a recent TOP10 list of most challenging games ever - althou behind KSP).

The problem is that I strongly feel a very dangerous bias in KSP, its community, and its development history.

I can't prove it, by I feel that development has been biased by KSP community in direction of making the game even harder than it was. Of course that's better than make the dame duller. But I think there's a better way to do it:

- let the game be as complex as it already is, if not more

- reduce the "complicated" part, if possible 

- let it be hard, but add a ladder for kids, casual players, and noobs.

I already discussed the option of implementing the ladder in the fog-of-war career philosophy: to disclose some of the map and of knowledge, you are being guided through very simple "scientific" tasks which teach you how the GUI and basic game features work.

Quote

As for the procedurally generated solar system, I think that there are multiple ways to do that. You could A) have multiple different solar systems with different difficulty levels on each. The player could choose each one. B) Keep the Kerbol System and have a procedurally generated "galaxy" of ten or so other solar systems. C) Do what you are suggesting, with choosing procedurally generated or stock with DLC and mod solar systems as an option, or my favourite, D) in which there are multiple planets, but not procedurally generated, as well as several example systems (with the different difficulty levels as suggested in A. An RSS-like solar system might be a good idea too for the ultra-realism players. You would then have the choice of a pre-made system (including kerbol and the possible RSS system), a randomized system, or you could create a custom sloar system to your needs and wants.

Good ideas here. Once you open the Pandora Procedural Planet System box, we are going to read even more. 

Quote

Thanks for reading, I hope someone might find something useful in here.

You already know.

Edited April 19, 2016 by monamipierrot

[Pthigrivi]

8 minutes ago, monamipierrot said:

That's curious. In a fog-of-war game you would DEFINITELY want to build more planes to map unknown regions of Kerbin; but you may also strongly need rovers or small hoppers to fine map some small portion of Mun in search of new biomes/science/ore or just better landing/base sites for the guys orbitin up there.

Fog-of-war would BOOST creativity and give you a reason to take your a*s to some distant body. I think it is even obvious.

Its a quality over quantity question for me. Just for the moment lets set aside how massively complicated and time consuming it would be to provide players with a permutational planet generator they could use easily and produce sensible results. Even if squad did invest a year in making this what would be the result? Huge numbers of planets that remain basically empty with the added problem of having no real means of balancing difficulty or career rewards. Right now there are few easter eggs that most people never find, all biomes are essentially equal, so every mission consists of getting into orbit, landing any old place, eva, surface sample, click through experiments, hop back on and fly home. There's no real reason within the rules and rewards of the game to explore more than 10 feet from the lander. Nothing about producing infinite planets changes this dynamic. What use is it to map endless planetary surfaces if there's nothing to find there? We may differ here, but the "ooh-aah" feeling of seeing a new planet doesn't really last long for me. I'd much rather the sense of discovery not end after putting a flag in the ground. What I think is missing isn't endless new planets, but a real sense of play and engagement through the entire mission experience. Players should be thinking about whether or not to send probes to map the surface or just wing it with a crewed mission. They should be carefully selecting landing sites and challenging themselves to land precisely in valuable places. In the VAB they should be considering weight and cost tradeoffs to bringing a rover or sending a mobile lab. They should be thinking about how each experiment would work on a given world, how that might shape how they construct things in the VAB and how they fly and route each mission. They should be really engaging with the surface and improvising when unexpected opportunities arise. Right now none of those things can really happen because the planets themselves are, from a gameplay standpoint, flat and without definition. There's no game-based incentive to do these things and so doing anything but flags and footprints is basically role play. 

[Pthigrivi]

Sorry this sounds super negative. Its not that I wouldn't enjoy new planets if they were there. I guess its just if Squad is going to invest time in making new planets Id much rather they carefully build and vet them with unique, balanced geography and atmospheres and orbits and just give us a well crafted GP2.

[Kosmonaut]

2 hours ago, monamipierrot said:

 

I already discussed the option of implementing the ladder in the fog-of-war career philosophy: to disclose some of the map and of knowledge, you are being guided through very simple "scientific" tasks which teach you how the GUI and basic game features work.

First off, I'd like to thank you for being so kind to me, people don't tend to be that way on the Internet. 

Second, I think that that is a very good idea. You could also maybe do something similar in career mode (You can unlock different parts of the UI, or you start with basic maps of the planets, except kerbin of course, and only pictures of the far out ones, such as Eeloo, or any planet implemented in our suggestions). As you explore, you can launch space telescopes for more detailed maps, and actually launch things into orbit of them to find biomes.

[monamipierrot]

4 hours ago, KosmonautwithacapitalK said:

First off, I'd like to thank you for being so kind to me, people don't tend to be that way on the Internet. 

Second, I think that that is a very good idea. You could also maybe do something similar in career mode (You can unlock different parts of the UI, or you start with basic maps of the planets, except kerbin of course, and only pictures of the far out ones, such as Eeloo, or any planet implemented in our suggestions). As you explore, you can launch space telescopes for more detailed maps, and actually launch things into orbit of them to find biomes.

Well, original post was exactly about that. You may want to reread it along with early comments. And.... Why not Kerbin itself? Why even SEE planets and bodies, including Mun and Kerbol? Somebody here and in other threads thought it was too silly e.g. to have your 1st kerbal "discovering" Kerbol by just testing or practicing the "crew report" UI button. Curious. They are playing a videogame with little green aliens committing suicide with a big smile on their face using rockets "found on the side of the road". I urgently need a definition of "silly".

[Atlas2342]

2 hours ago, monamipierrot said:

They are playing a videogame with little green aliens committing suicide with a big smile on their face using rockets "found on the side of the road". I urgently need a definition of "silly".

*assisted* suicide 

[-------------------------------]

Again i really like the idea of a "fog". Learn more about the planets when you land them, etc. That will give lots of incentive to build crafts that can explore planets. Send a probe, clear some of the fog. Send a lander, clear some of the fog. Send a rover? You guessed it...But for the procedural planets, ermm....well...yeah, there is something about them...that i dont like as per stuff said above...

(just my two cents, feel free to ignore...)

[blorgon]

Alright, procedural generation and fog-of-war and eXploration are all pretty beat subjects. Let's talk about automation. Now that 1.1 is released, what I want to know, and am having a hard time figuring out, is if it's theoretically possible to simulate multiple crafts at once. I really need to know once-and-for-all if Unity will ever allow it, and if SQUAD will ever consider it. A lot of people have argued that the game is great at housekeeping, which I'm grateful for. But why not add an option to appropriate parts in a RMB context menu in the VAB/SPH that lets a player enable or disable physics simulation after separation, sort of like how we can choose whether or not decouplers can stage? If enabled, upon separation from the active vessel, any part attached to the sim-enabled part will continue to simulate. You'd only be able to apply the option to probe cores and other command modules, since there's not much reason to simulate other objects (except maybe spent boosters, but honestly, it's way cooler to land those autonomously using probe cores than just dredging them from the sea).

This would be a MASSIVE improvement to the game, because as it stands, there's really no mechanic present for true automation. I really want to be able to launch multiple probes on the same rocket, and have them carry out their tasks autonomously after writing a kOS script for each one. I want to be able to monitor multiple probes via the Probe Control Room, with telemetry and optics feeds from each one, and schedule photo-taking actions and the sort. I want to be able to launch a probe into parking orbit, and have it carry out an interplanetary transfer and course corrections while I take care of other things. It's really frustrating having to babysit a probe while it carries out instructions, since the point of giving it tasks to carry out autonomously is so that you don't have to be there when it does what it needs to.

@AdmiralTigerclaw said:

Quote

[...] the player is eventually stuck doing every little maintenance task for their growing space agency until you reach a point where it becomes impossible to expand because all of your work is geared to just keeping your existing operations afloat.  Any and all procedural generation beyond this point is pointless because you cannot access it (short of cheating).  There is only so many times you can fly the same resupply mission before it becomes a chore.

 

[monamipierrot]

1 hour ago, blorgon said:

Let's talk about automation

In my OP I addressed the problem of AI (or should we say automation), to help the Player managing his growing fleet of vessels, but multiple spacecraft was not what I meant. I only thought that repetitive tasks should be automated. But for this some stock built in MechJeb-like utility should be enough. However, you're clearly referring to

@AdmiralTigerclaw's vision of a entire ecosystem of fleets/colonies/bases/stations which are going to be the bonestructure of our exploration of the Solar system. If I'm not wrong, he didn't have in mind automated (real) operations, such as "having that rover mine, having the other taking the ore to a base, having a hopper store the fuel in a orbital station...", but something such a "virtual" ecosystem, in which you don't really physically SEE what's happening, but since you builded the right infrastructures, and provided the right conditions, things work themselves, invisibly, exactly as happen in a common 4X or RTS game: you builded a base, a vab, some mining unit, provided energy, an orbital communication system, and voilá, you can just build your first 100% munar rocket. That would be a lot easier to implement, althou yes, much less sexy.

 

2 hours ago, Atlas2342 said:

But for the procedural planets, ermm....well...yeah, there is something about them...that i dont like as per stuff said above...

fog-of-war makes sense if you don't konw what's out there. I also would love to have a slave-army of programmers and designers which design beautiful worlds with same quality of stock ones, just for me, but unfortunately slavery is illegal.

So we have 4 options:

1. Struggle to have quality procedural random generated universes

2. Find a workaround by randomly tweaking existing bodies/solar system within some few "safe" parameters, such as Kopernicus and related mods already more or less do

3. Have a prewritten online library of Universes, say half a dozen to start, hoping that developers can add more in the future.

4. "Stick to stock" and stare at a Men In Black torchlight each time we start a new career (might harm your mind if abused)

 

[monamipierrot]

11 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Sorry this sounds super negative. Its not that I wouldn't enjoy new planets if they were there. I guess its just if Squad is going to invest time in making new planets Id much rather they carefully build and vet them with unique, balanced geography and atmospheres and orbits and just give us a well crafted GP2.

It doesn't at all.

Let me only stretch and insist that we don't need a "war of the poor" and that many proposals I found in this and other threads may sound very different and apparently in competition, but instead they should gang or lobby (if they can't merge) because all of them has this in common: they feel KSP is incomplete and that it is a pity given the inmense potential of this great game. If Squad grasps this concept ("we only have a incomplete masterpiece, a raw diamond, a embryo of a beautiful creature") I'm sure they will revise the development stream to add more work in a critical rethinking of the core game, and not only think about the last details, which I'm afraid is their next goal.

[Atlas2342]

22 minutes ago, monamipierrot said:

So we have 4 options:

1. Struggle to have quality procedural random generated universes

2. Find a workaround by randomly tweaking existing bodies/solar system within some few "safe" parameters, such as Kopernicus and related mods already more or less do

3. Have a prewritten online library of Universes, say half a dozen to start, hoping that developers can add more in the future.

4. "Stick to stock" and stare at a Men In Black torchlight each time we start a new career (might harm your mind if abused)

 

4 is my main choice but 3 sounds good...

PS: just started playing 1.1 right now

 

Edited April 20, 2016 by Atlas2342

[monamipierrot]

11 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

We may differ here, but the "ooh-aah" feeling of seeing a new planet doesn't really last long for me. I'd much rather the sense of discovery not end after putting a flag in the ground.

Believe me, we don't differ a lot.

I perfectly understand and almost completely agree on what you say, and couldn't say it better.

The thread you are referring to is full of great ideas. I just believe that these kind of ideas are perfect for a marriage with my OP proposals. The spirit is the same, and I would say one would be incomplete without the other one. But again: we need Squad to be aware that a radical rethinking of this not-much-more-than-a-sandbox game is needed. Now.

On 18/4/2016 at 10:28 PM, KosmonautwithacapitalK said:

For the "Kid's mode" idea, I think that there should be a dulled down mode but not way less complex like you are suggesting.

Hey, check this out: I think you'll love it (or at least your schoolmate will do!):

 

[Kosmonaut]

I think one thing that needs to be overhauled is the 0.625 parts. I know that it isn't that big of a problem, but they are so convenient to me. I know that there are mods, but I hate resorting to mods to do what the game should. 

A second thing is an overhaul of the planets tthemselves. Wouldn't it be awesome to have acid puddles on eve, volcanoes on tylo and glow in the dark algae and maybe even plants on laythe? And jool needs a small ring. I know that it's more like Saturn, but it would look better with a Jupiter ring. 

A third thing is an asteroid overhaul. Right now they are random objects careening around the solar system. They need more of them in orbits and actually on planets, like they crashed. They could have contracts attached: investigate the mysterious object... 

[blorgon]

5 hours ago, monamipierrot said:

In my OP I addressed the problem of AI (or should we say automation), to help the Player managing his growing fleet of vessels, but multiple spacecraft was not what I meant. I only thought that repetitive tasks should be automated. But for this some stock built in MechJeb-like utility should be enough.

See, I feel like this isn't what SQUAD wants. Many people have said that SQUAD don't like "automation", which I get to an extent, but people use it as an excuse to summarily dismiss anything having to do with it. Way I see it, you should have to actually WRITE the programs your autonomous craft run. This way, the players who'd rather micromanage their space program manually are free to do so, but the players who want the extra challenge and reward could go the extra step to write the code for their space program to continue doing everything autonomously. I still kind of like the idea of AI, but only really in the context of Kerbals being able to get out of their craft and take surface samples and do crew reports and walk around. What I DON'T like the idea of AI being used for is what you say you'd like, which, from what I can tell, is basically MechJeb. I don't use MechJeb, so I'm not totally familiar, but can't it do everything from launch to transfer to land to launch to reentry to splashdown? Docking too? Is there anything MechJeb currently can't do? That strikes me as the antithesis of what SQUAD is trying to accomplish, which to me is teaching people the fundamentals of spaceflight, which you can't really do very effectively if you're letting people just turn on autopilot and have it take care of everything for them.

The reason I want players to have the option to automate tasks, and that they also have to write the programs themselves, is that this forces the player to still do the task manually a few times, so they familiarize themselves with the process they want to automate. It might not be totally necessary for more advanced players, but somebody who's just started KSP and has never been to orbit probably won't yet know how to write a program that can get them into orbit, because they'll be unfamiliar with the concept of a gravity turn, and TWR, and delta-V. They'd still need to trial-and-error the process that gets them to orbit, and THEN figure out how to translate it into code. Really, it's that if AI were available from the get-go, I think a lot of new players wouldn't really bother with learning all the things SQUAD wants to teach us. This way forces them to learn the hard way, so to speak, but allows players to evolve into much more skilled and advanced players, since right now the only metric for skill seems largely based on how many planets you've been to, and how well you did it. Adding flight code into the mix allows players to evolve into a more diverse type of advanced skill, and then we'd have a community of players who all had different skills, instead of a group of people who have all done grand tours or whatever.

 

PS—I'm well aware of kOS, and how it does everything I'm talking about here. I'm only arguing for this kind of AI over OP's kind of AI. My original comment is about being able to simulate multiple crafts at the same time, from which the users of kOS would massively benefit.

Edited April 20, 2016 by blorgon

[Andem]

12 hours ago, monamipierrot said:

Well, original post was exactly about that. You may want to reread it along with early comments. And.... Why not Kerbin itself? Why even SEE planets and bodies, including Mun and Kerbol? Somebody here and in other threads thought it was too silly e.g. to have your 1st kerbal "discovering" Kerbol by just testing or practicing the "crew report" UI button. Curious. They are playing a videogame with little green aliens committing suicide with a big smile on their face using rockets "found on the side of the road". I urgently need a definition of "silly".

The reason We said discovering the Sun and Mun was silly is because t not know about the sun would be, quite frankly, pathetic. That would be like saying: "Huh, I can breathe air. Neato." or "Hmm. I might need food to stop from being hungry... It worked! Whaddaya know?" in the 21^st Century. The other bodies, however, would require a telescope, so yes, it is justifiable to not know of them. But discovering the Sun and Mun? Again, really silly.

Silly, as in stock KSP, is Impish, Cute, Adorable, Funny.

Silly, as in discovering THE GIANT LIGHT ORB THAT CHANGES HOW YOU SEE THE ENTIRE WORLD, is Pathetic, Absurd, Cringeworthy, and Lunacy IMO.

[monamipierrot]

2 hours ago, Andem said:

Silly, as in discovering THE GIANT LIGHT ORB THAT CHANGES HOW YOU SEE THE ENTIRE WORLD, is Pathetic, Absurd, Cringeworthy, and Lunacy IMO.

...

Can't get the irony. Will keep this as a joke anyway.

[monamipierrot]

4 hours ago, blorgon said:

players who want the extra challenge and reward could go the extra step to write the code for their space program to continue doing everything autonomously.

 

4 hours ago, blorgon said:

What I DON'T like the idea of AI being used for is what you say you'd like, which, from what I can tell, is basically MechJeb.

Mechjeb yes. You just described it above. You basically want players to... write Mechjeb. Wait, as you put it "write the CODE" of Mechjeb. Do you ever thought that the best pilot/engineer out there could have NO IDEA of writing a few codes of a basic program? And, most important, NO INTEREST? I mean, Mechjeb is a complex piece of software, althou there's no AI involved. And in the code, rocket science and engineering would be 0,01%, while 99,99% would be just - you know - programming, coding, debug, etc.

What I was thinking is something much more simple for everyone. To put it rough: once you prove you can do some standard manouever (e.g. rendez-vouz, docking, suicide land, hofman transfer....) the corresponding MechJeb manouever becomes available (throu a new hardware part, or some automatic "software" update on all existing vessels) and you can use at will. To make sure you don't just STOP making a specific manouever ever more, there may be layers, e.g. layer 1 is quite inefficient, buggy and inexact but you can improve this tech by manually performing better and better manouevers. Or, the current MechJeb CPU/software may be not compatible with some selected hardware config or body/biome situation, forcing the player to perform once again the manouever. Or there could specific "science" points for each kind of manouever "Docking science points", "landing science points" which you need to earn if you want to "purchase" the tech layer corresponding to the specific MechJeb software module for THAT manouever.

I proved zillions of times I can do a proper hofman transfer, a decent rendez vouz, a efficient take off from Mun etc. etc.; it starts to be VERY ANNOYING to repeat dozens of times the same manouver. Of course, I also don't even want to start CODING it, for the same reason I don't want to design the details of a new engine (for a honest comparison to your proposal, I should have said "to phisically build a new engine in my backyard"). For these reason, some MEchjeb equivalent should exist.

On the other hand, your idea of MULTIPLE vessels automation may prove to be vital. But still, please stick to some MechJeb thing, scaled down to the point it doesn't steal us the challenge and the pleasure of doing once in a while some manual manouver.

 

 

 

[blorgon]

29 minutes ago, monamipierrot said:

Do you ever thought that the best pilot/engineer out there could have NO IDEA of writing a few codes of a basic program? And, most important, NO INTEREST?

Well for one, this is why I tried to make it very clear that this would be an OPTIONAL part of the game. And yeah, most engineers actually have to learn a lot of programming. Dunno about pilots, but I imagine less so, if at all. But, of course, that makes perfect sense, doesn't it? It's the engineers that are designing the flight software, not the pilots. If you're a skilled pilot, then obviously you can get by without the help of a computer.

Anyway, like I said, I'm not talking about using MechJeb vs using kOS. I'm talking about being able to run kOS scripts on multiple vessels at the same time, that's all. Sure, I've got my opinions on the use of MechJeb, but they're just that. Mods already exist that allow for writing flight software (kOS), which for the hardcore realism players, is a pretty key part of realism. I'm firmly in the camp of players who want more control over their space program, not less by letting computers do the work for them, but by making the computers do the work for them. It's incredibly satisfying writing a piece of software, no matter how simple. You oughta try it.

[monamipierrot]

39 minutes ago, blorgon said:

You oughta try it.

kOS in stock KSP could convince me. Especially with RemoteTech ON and unswitchable

[Andem]

3 hours ago, monamipierrot said:

...

Can't get the irony. Will keep this as a joke anyway.

?

[AdmiralTigerclaw]

Net's been out a few days (lightning storm activity) or I would have posted sooner.

@monamipierrot 

A big part of my reasoning behind a 4X or RTS style 'simulated' environment is to conserve PC resources.  Have you used Remote Tech 2 or scansat?  The game's simulation environment suffers from the resource load that results from calculating the orbital pathways for a satellite constellation.  And the physics engine suffers from the excessive parts from any vehicles in the active scene.

It just needs to be addressed that if we want to consider any kind of 'infrastructure-building' side to the gameplay, it needs to be approached with the understanding that if we brute-force it with player-built, player-guided, and player-operated ships, there won't be any PC resources left...  Even with the improvements with the Unity engine in the update.

 

Of course, going the RTS or 4X route is not as fun because you don't build everything yourself and set it all up, but I can think of a method to at least have the player keep their hand in designing for environments and problem solving, WHILE automating after the 'first contact' part of the operation.

 

'Vehicle Qualification'.

 

In this concept, you set up your base and the various resource points around it on say, Duna.  However, supplies do not automatically start flowing until you have built and deployed a vehicle that passes a qualification trial.

A qualification trial is essentially an active test run of a vehicle that the player builds that can both make the run the required distance, and carry a supply load.

To qualify, the player must build a vehicle with the cargo capacity for the job they want (Let's say, hauling ore from a mine to a processing location.)  The player builds the vehicle, deploys or flies it to the destination.  Then the player clicks a tab to 'start a qualification run' and selects the two locations from the orbital map view.  From here, the player pilots the vehicle to one location, and then to the other.  The objective is that the vehicle can make it between both locations.  If it does, the vehicle is now qualified for that run and is added to a 'qualified vehicle' list for X cargo over Y distance in Z environment. (NOTE: 'Make it between both locations' means coming to a complete stop for ten seconds inside a marker of some kind, without being destroyed...)  The player may then chose to utilize said vehicle for any operation on that planet involving X Cargo, up to Y distance, in environment (on planet) Z.  The player's RTS style bases may also 'build' more of said vehicles to improve the runs.  Alternately, if having to pick a destination is too constraining, it could be designed so the player just plugs in a distance, and then drives the vehicle that distance.  If it fits, it ships, as they say.

 

As an active example, let's say I have a Munar base in a prime location with mines 40 km away in several directions.  Utilizing my newly built Motor Pool (Think SPH but for rovers, I really think we need one too), I design a Munar Cargo buggy and have it built from supplies I shipped in from Kerbin.  It can carry three tons of ore from a mine to the processing plant.

Once I finish testing the cargo buggy (the normal kerbal way), I run a qualification where I drive it from the processing plant at the base, out to the mining site that's say, 43 km out.  Assuming the cargo buggy gets there in one piece, it is now qualified for any run on the Mun between two points that are 43 km apart while carrying 'ore'.  I may continue to use the buggy, or I may 'assign' it to the mine to make runs back to the processing plant.  If assigned, it vanishes and becomes part of the simulated pool of vehicles.

Back at the base, the qualified buggy appears in a list of vehicles for logistics use, and I may now tell the Motor Pool at the base that to build 'ten' of these buggies (if it has the resources), and assign them to make runs between the processing plant, and the various mines.  Again, none of these vehicles physically appear, but rather appear in a pool of simulated vehicles.  (To keep the physics load to a minimum).

If they are removed from assignment, they are returned to the Motor Pool and 'stored' until they are either reassigned to another operation, or scrapped for resources.

In this manner, the player builds up their logistics network and designs what vehicles are available to function, but doesn't get stuck with any task more tedious than the qualification runs.  Once a vehicle is qualled, the extent of the player's work is point and click.

 

And information on each qualled vehicle would look somewhat like:

==========================================

QUALIFIED VEHICLES:

Name: Munar Cargo Rover [Thumbnail snapshot]

Qualified SoI: Mun (Surface)

Range: 43 km

Cargo: ORE (3.0 tons)

Cost: 3800 rocket parts 

=========================================

 

And the concept doesn't end there.  If you saved the design in the motor pool, VAB, or SPH, it can be accessed from ANY Motor Pool, VAB, or SPH in your game.  So if you built a base on Duna after using the Mun as a staging point, you could build the Munar Cargo Rover from your Duna base Motor Pool, and assuming it operates nicely without tweaks, you can qualify it there, and now you have:

=========================================

Qualified SoI: Mun (Surface); Duna (Surface)

=========================================

Which can be useful because now you can say, built an aircraft on Kerbin, qualify it on Kerbin, and then build it on Laythe, and then turn around and qualify it on Laythe as well.  (Similar atmospheres)

 

The concept can be extended to rocket launches to ferry supplies to stations.  With added parameters for things like safe returns.  (Rocket must fly to, and return from station to qualify.  More details on accounting for staged rockets would have to be considered to deal with say, replacement costs for jettisoned stages, etc with each background simulated launch...)

 

But I digress...  Simply put, there's a solution to creating game automation while still putting the player IN CHARGE of the automation.  Mind you, this is not 'what I would love to see', this is literally a solution I stitched together in my head while sitting here typing this very post.  With a few days to think on this, and this alone and input from others, I could think of ways to further improve the system.