MOVED! (Mods Please Lock Thread) Community Career Framework - A Balance Mod Standards Cooperative for Career Games (A Community Recommended Mod List that Commits to Working Well Together in Career Games)

[inigma]

On 12/27/2015 at 11:13 PM, legoclone09 said:

Ok? I assume you're trying to say well said to my answer.

 

Also, @inigma, I we do need a standard for fuel tanks, probably volume of tank * 0.86 since that is Procedural Part's standard, we should adopt to that, but maybe a version for rescales that changes it slightly for each rescale, I'm thinking real (96-97) for Kerbol10x, and down to around 90 for 5x Kerbol or 64k since those make it more balanced.

@Kerbas_ad_astra I'd like to invite you to help with engines and fuel tank balancing, since you would do a good job on it.

Consensus here on that. I'll publish it in the OP as our first Standard, of course, it will always be open to redrafting, but if no one objects, I think adopting the Proceedural Parts standard seems easiest to implement as far as compatibility since PP has been balancing this standard for a long while.

[theonegalen]

I find the KAX pack to be both much more useful (because stockalike) and easy to work with (because fewer parts) than Firespitter. It is also being actively maintained.

@inigma, using the Procedural Parts standard would also mean that PP would easily slot into CCF as an optional mod, especially since PP is supported in the ETT.

Edited December 28, 2015 by theonegalen

[legoclone09]

Yeah, also I like KAX more, Firespittsr parts just look ugly to me. It's just personal preference though.

[CobaltWolf]

My question then, is how does the PP 0.86xVolume translate to the fuel units? Also, what is the equation for dry mass of the tank?

[legoclone09]

Dry mass could be 1/10th of the fuel in the tank.

Also @inigma I have been using ETT lately, I like it way more than SETI, especially with tons of mods.

[inigma]

Just now, legoclone09 said:

Dry mass could be 1/10th of the fuel in the tank.

Also @inigma I have been using ETT lately, I like it way more than SETI, especially with tons of mods.

@Probus is interested in joining this project. he's already accepted a personal invite, so I think we will be going with ETT as the recommended tech tree going forward unless anyone else objects. This doesn't mean though someone else can't certify a tech tree as CCF compatible, as long as it supports the accepted career progression framework.

[legoclone09]

Ok, sounds good! Maybe we can get Roverdude's subs in here, we likely will.

Also a dock for the sub would be nice, with a KAS line and some anchors to connect to land. It would have to float and be modular with a anchor hub. I might make a simple model for that. Like a square that floats.

[legoclone09]

I'm on vacation but working on a logo for this. It'll be terrible though. Probably.

 

EDIT:
I'm scrapping that, I can make a mockup of how the early career would balance out in this with ETT since you start with 1.25m and 0.625m parts. Maybe a more linear area at first with sounding rockets and other beginning stuff and then it fleshes out? Like a small subtree in the bottom corner area that has the final area with that go to the start node on ETT.

EDIT 2:
I can also make a rescale recommended mod area with mm configs to balance out. I will make a standard for rescales, that should be up soon^tm

Edited December 29, 2015 by legoclone09

[Vesparco]

Hi there,

I've ben politely introduced to this post from the community tech tree, as I was looking for something like this with "Stock-alike" scope. In these matter I would suggest the mods from Necrobones as I started using them recently and I must say the additional parts and the visual improvements are more than welcomed (specially for 2.5m). 

As I've seen you have already set more or less the tech tree by taking the one on ETT (which I like) but I must ask the difficult question that is how are you going to address balance between parts.

I think that balance in a tiered tech system is extremely complex. To define the rules of balance you must set first the aims of the tiers. What do you achieve in each tier? you earn new parts that are better because they have better stats and/or because you can build things you previously can't?

Keeping the discussion of the structural mass of a tank. If all the tanks in the tech tree have the same 1/10th of the tank volume, the progression of the tech tree then aims for a bigger solution or a cheaper one, as the ratio between tanks is the same (and hence is not better). If the tanks between tiers change between a 15% at the start  and a 5% at the end then the discussion is different as then you are looking for efficiency ( may not be too relevant for a first stage but it will impact greatly on the last one, giving you a fairly boost on DV).

I have some ideas that could help in this matter but before throwing a block of text I would rather hear yours  

 

[legoclone09]

I agree about dry mass. I think the tanks should all start at 15%, but in structural nodes there are upgrade techs (not part dupes!) that reduce dry mass to a low of 2.5% in a >1000 Science node.

@inigma SRBs should be left as-is, only with tech tree changes. The cost so little it's not worth changing them except for amount of fuel which should be a flat 90%. Another problem is how do we calculate volume of all fuel tanks? It would take a long time to open the .mu files to do so, maybe there is a formula we can use with some unused stuff in stock. I might PM HarvestR about that.

Edited December 29, 2015 by legoclone09

[inigma]

7 minutes ago, legoclone09 said:

I agree about dry mass. I think the tanks should all start at 15%, but in structural nodes there are upgrade techs (not part dupes!) that reduce dry mass to a low of 2.5% in a >1000 Science node.

@inigma SRBs should be left as-is, only with tech tree changes. The cost so little it's not worth changing them except for amount of fuel which should be a flat 90%. Another problem is how do we calculate volume of all fuel tanks? It would take a long time to open the .mu files to do so, maybe there is a formula we can use with some unused stuff in stock. I might PM HarvestR about that.

Are stock fuel tanks balanced? Is there a need to adjust stock balances? The easiest adoption for CCF by career players would be in its ability to ensure compatibility of mods with stock, and not the other way around. Correct? 

[legoclone09]

Right, I think tanks should be left as-is then. I am pretty sure about stock tanks being balanced. So thend dry mass is for every 100 units of LF+O it i 0.0625 tons of dry tankage, I think this is stock's balance (taking data from the 1.25m tanks).

[CobaltWolf]

3 hours ago, legoclone09 said:

Right, I think tanks should be left as-is then. I am pretty sure about stock tanks being balanced. So thend dry mass is for every 100 units of LF+O it i 0.0625 tons of dry tankage, I think this is stock's balance (taking data from the 1.25m tanks).

Sadly it is not consistent. The 1.25m tanks are all the same, but the 2.5m tanks are not, and the Oscar-B is grossly overpowered, etc. I had a spreadsheet where I started calculating the various ratios for everything back I cannot seem to find it. Honestly that's what I think would need to be done, have a spreadsheet with all the stock values. So then we'd know what the overall average ratios for everything is, along with how the various sizes of fuel tanks stack up. Since it seems that squad has determined that 1.25m tanks, 2.5m tanks, etc are balanced differently, it would probably be best to balance tanks according to their diameter. 2.5m tanks would have 2.5m fuel amounts etc. Intermediate sizes from mods (such as the growing 1.875m) would maybe be an average of 1.25m and 2.5m.
But to get started someone would have to sit down and run the numbers. I'll see if I can find that spreadsheet that I had started on.

[legoclone09]

9 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

Sadly it is not consistent. The 1.25m tanks are all the same, but the 2.5m tanks are not, and the Oscar-B is grossly overpowered, etc. I had a spreadsheet where I started calculating the various ratios for everything back I cannot seem to find it. Honestly that's what I think would need to be done, have a spreadsheet with all the stock values. So then we'd know what the overall average ratios for everything is, along with how the various sizes of fuel tanks stack up. Since it seems that squad has determined that 1.25m tanks, 2.5m tanks, etc are balanced differently, it would probably be best to balance tanks according to their diameter. 2.5m tanks would have 2.5m fuel amounts etc. Intermediate sizes from mods (such as the growing 1.875m) would maybe be an average of 1.25m and 2.5m.
But to get started someone would have to sit down and run the numbers. I'll see if I can find that spreadsheet that I had started on.

So we need to balance out 2.5m, this should be based off of the one with the best mass ratio. Since it is better it makes more sense because of advancing technology. The Oscar-B does need a nerf, though. Maybe it can be the same as 1.25m since it is in the same tech cost as 1.25m in ETT.

Edited December 29, 2015 by legoclone09

[CobaltWolf]

5 minutes ago, legoclone09 said:

So we need to balance out 2.5m, this should be based off of the one with the best mass ratio. Since it is better it makes more sense because of advancing technology. The Oscar-B does need a nerf, though. Maybe it can be the same as 1.25m since it is in the same tech cost as 1.25m in ETT.

Which brings us back to the question (is it still a question? I'm not sure) are you trying to rebalance stock, or provide a guideline for balancing TO stock?

EDIT: My point was that stock seems to have different balance for different tank sizes.

Edited December 29, 2015 by CobaltWolf

[kcs123]

8 minutes ago, CobaltWolf said:

Which brings us back to the question (is it still a question? I'm not sure) are you trying to rebalance stock, or provide a guideline for balancing TO stock?

EDIT: My point was that stock seems to have different balance for different tank sizes.

There was some discussion about it elsewhere on forum recently.

Pressurised tanks is not the same as non pressurised tanks like we have in cars, for example. To sustain much higher fuel pressure, larger fuel tanks need stronger structure than smaller tanks. Therefore, larger tanks were less fuel efficient (structure mass vs fuel/oxidizer mass) than 1.25m or smaller tanks like oscar.

So, for stock fuel tanks, in my opinion, there is no need to rebalance it. Feel free to do it if you think that there is need for it, though. I can't really tell that I put much attention in that gameplay area, that doesn't bothered me much like other stuffs.

[legoclone09]

Tank mass doesn't bother me too much, big ones are usually on heavy lifters. I don't think a rebalance is needed then.

[kcs123]

Some more feedback about how mid to late career progress should look like that is not covered in my first post one page back. To remind you so you don't need to read whole wall of text again, I will highlight some guidelines.

Things that were good contract wise(in my opinion) is:

• test part X on Y speed at Z altitude - good only for noob players in KSP as general and until player is capable to reach orbit, after that point of gameplay this kind of contracts become tedious. Should not be excluded completely from gameplay, but should be limited until player establish first orbit. Testing part in orbit around Kerbin is pretty much the same as on the Mun orbit. Testing part on runway/launchpad - that is pretty much a "gift" rather than any chalange.
• Instead of having test part X on runway/launchpad, you could get a contract where some Kerbin company left you a "gift" (container filled with ore or similar luxury value) because of data revealed trough scaning Kerbin from space. You can recover that part/debris at once for small buks or have oportunity to create a craft and haull it somehow much closer to KSC, where you can recover it for much larger amount of bucks. That is one of contract where aircraft will have some more purpose
• Placing/recovering satellite probes at certain orbits around various celestial bodies are quite fun and player can learn a lot trough that kind of contracts
• rescue missions - should be limited for orbit around Kerbin. This is good type of contracts where player must learn about rendezvous/docking procedure - essential part of whole gameplay before continue to progress further trough gameplay. But like I mentioned, it is slight immersion breaker since you are a pioneer of Kerbal space travels. That could be "explained" by some degree that those stranded Kerbals were kerbonauts from some other rival company and their mission failed. Even more, once you accept such mission, it should have limited time to finish - inside 2-3 kerbal days, to bring more chalange. Maybe rescue missions around Mun and Minimus could be included too, but to rescue someone from orbit around Eve or some other planet that require good transfer window, etc. - that is quite of immersion breaker for whole game. Also, rendezvous/docking procedure in orbit around Eve is pretty much the same as rendezvous/docking in orbit around Kerbin, so there is no special need for those as learning helper trough contracts.

Thing that I didn't mentioned in previous post is orbital/celestial base building. After player have learned how to reach orbit, place satellites in desired orbits, find out how to reach Mun/Minimus and learned rendezvous/docking maneuver, first larger orbital construction is fuel station in LKO - to make all other missions for distant planets feasible.
Puting fuel station in orbit and refueling it is also fun to do first 2-3 times. But when you want to focus on missons around distant celestial bodies it can also become tedious thing to do in mid to later part of playtrough.

It is maybe already covered trough various mods, like extraplanetary launchpads or USI mod, I must admit that I didn't investigated this for each detail. But, I was thinking about contract offered to player to build a craft that is capable to refuel station in orbit. After player create such craft, refuel station in LKO, get back from space to KSC and recover as much as possible of his craft. Then player is able to "sell" blueprint of such craft to some other company.

After such contract is complete, player could get a chance to buy fuel for station in orbit. The amount of fuel that could be delivered per contract and how often such contract is available to player could be based on that "blueprint" of craft that player created for first time. Oportunity to refuel stations by some other company should not be possible each day, it should be something like one refuel contract per kerbal week, or one contract in two week, or one contract per month available. Again, how often and how many fuel is available trough such contract could based on success of first initial contract to create capable craft.

Later on, as game progress, player might get oportunity to improve "blueprint" of such craft that could bring fuel more often and/or in larger amount. That will be interesting mini chalange in early career, but also can relief player from tedious tasks in mid to late playtrough when someone is more focused to build ground base on Mun or Eve or some other planet. In mid to late game player would probably have more than enough money to pay refueling rather than do that by himself.

 

When speaking of ground bases, that is other part of this post that I want to cover. When KSP 1.1 is released, remote control will be part of stock gameplay. So, besides setting up satellite relay stations, player should probably need to have some ground bases too, for such purposes. Furthermore, mods like USI MKS/OKS could be too complex for some players to fully enjoy it. It might require a lot of internet/forum/manuals reading to learn how to proper set/build efficient ground base that have cababilities for half closed or full closed self sustained base.

That brings up one more type of contract for GAP. I have seen that Inigma already working on something like that. My idea is that trough contract player learn what is needed to build closed loop self sustained base. Meaning, player need to deploy various type of ground base parts on certain spot on Kerbal. Polar caps are good choice for such contracts and good for overall game immersion. It does not need to be full closed self sufficient base, it might be missing some type of resources that need to be hauled there from time to time trough another contract type. But player should get info somewhere what else is needed for self sufficient base.

That type of contract could teach player what is needed for ground base without need to search for info elsewhere, outside of game.
Another problem is game engine and infamous KSP kraken that can hit when you expect least. Numerous base parts along with parts from player craft can pop up undesired results when you reach range between ground base parts and your own craft when game engine physic start to act. Furthermore, especially for players that use a lot of mods, parts used for base creation might be changed between KSP version and patches/upgrades of moded parts.

To avoid undesired situations where part changes might broke your whole career I suggest something else. Once player fulfill contract for base creation, instead of leaving various parts on the ground, those parts could be removed and whole base can be replaced with prefabricated mesh. Some buildings similar to KSC, or even better like building/bases used for KerbineSide mod. For such meshes physics is not calculated, so there is much less chance to awake kraken. Also if some parts/meshes were changed between updates of mods/KSP, it will have much less chance that it will break your saved game.

I again ended with wall of text, but that will be last one for this year. I wish you all happy new year and get away from computer and KSP at leat for a while to celebrate it.

[legoclone09]

Very nice suggestions! I like them.

[Probus]

Hi everyone!

  I am excited about this new thread.  I appreciate all the endorsements of ETT.  It started out as just a way to incorporate all the techs by tech type based initially on Interstellar (since it had the only tech tree editor).

  ETT is by no way perfect and I love constructive feedback.  Some of the branches are well developed while others are... lacking.  Especially the whole flight branch of the tree.  I would love for someone to line that out for me.  I'm such a terrible pilot that balancing it is a real problem.

  I am willing to work as much as possible as time permits.  My only goals/rules are to try to:

• Keep to engineering/physics disciplines per branch.
• Must involve flights to nearby planets.
• Must be fun and not too grindy.

  Mainly I am interested in making KSP Career interesting for the experienced to expert player's alike.

  Now I'll go read all your comments.

  Just read all the thread.  AWESOME!

  Is it possible for contracts to unlock parts that aren't available normally in the tech tree?  The reason I ask is for situations like the RAPIER.  See where I'm going?

Edited January 1, 2016 by Probus

[inigma]

On 12/24/2015 at 0:04 AM, DMagic said:

 

7 minutes ago, Probus said:

Hi everyone!

  I am excited about this new thread.  I appreciate all the endorsements of ETT.  It started out as just a way to incorporate all the techs by tech type based initially on Interstellar (since it had the only tech tree editor).

  ETT is by no way perfect and I love constructive feedback.  Some of the branches are well developed while others are... lacking.  Especially the whole flight branch of the tree.  I would love for someone to line that out for me.  I'm such a terrible pilot that balancing it is a real problem.

  I am willing to work as much as possible as time permits.  My only goals/rules are to try to:

• Keep to engineering/physics disciplines per branch.
• Unlocking the entire tech tree is not necessarily the goal but doing so must involve flights to nearby planets.
• Must be fun and not to grindy.

  Mainly I am interested in making KSP Career interesting for the experienced to expert player's alike.

  Now I'll go read all your comments.

Thanks for porting your project to GitHub, as it will make it easier to submit pull requests for recommendations etc.  I will be happy to provide insight on the tech tree regarding airplane part placement. 

Edited January 1, 2016 by inigma

[legoclone09]

@Probus I think contracts can infinitely give you a part. Also with flight I might be able to help.

Edited January 1, 2016 by legoclone09

[kcs123]

 

On 23.12.2015. at 5:10 PM, inigma said:

It was suggested by Nertea that the Community Career Framework (CCF) should provide a basic set of standards for career part and cost balance, rather than adopting one tech tree or one person's vision of how things should be balanced.

Based on this quote, I was thinking that CFF is more like setting standards rather than just one tree, but like DMagic stated, it will be hard to establish standards without any tech tree in mind to start working with. I'm glad that Probus accepted chalange and joined this project, so we got starting point to work on.

My initial thoughts about CFF and basic set of standards is that is similar to C# "interface" method. C# programmers are probably familiar with it, interface just describe some object what kind of methods, properties and events such object must have without desribing each method how it should look like.

For people that are not familiar with programming and C#, I will try to explain idea with hopefuly simple words in comparison with car industry.
Let's say that we need to describe a car as object. CFF set of rules should define that each car must have:chasis, wheels,engine, fuel tank and steering controler as minimum.
It does not describe how large chasis must be, how powerful engine should be, what will be inside chasis, color of chasis etc. But if someone create car as object and respect CFF rules we will know gor sure that car will have chasis, wheels,engine, fuel tank and steering controler for sure.

Therefore, CFF should give some "interface" for tech three how it should look like, without puting restrictions how some tech tree will lay out specific nodes, should be expanded from left to right, up or down or expand on all sides.

Defining branches for a tree is a good starting point to define CFF standards without puting too much restrictions for any kind of tech tree layout.
Currently I'm playing trough SETIctt, tracking down notes with pros/cons of some decisions. I will write down more about it later on, so you can use that info to establish those CFF standards.

Currently my free time is very limited, so I can't promise to work more on CFF, but I can provide some feedback and partly some pseudo codes and algorithm that hopefuly make life easier for folks that will actualy work on it.

[Yemo]

I've scimmed over the thread and since I have some experience with the SETI BalanceMod family, these are some quick remarks which come to mind:

I m not completely sure I understand the scope of the project. I unterstand that the long term goals are somewhat similar to the KSP 0.90 SETI BalanceMod, but I m not sure about the process to get in that direction, while there already seems to be a discussion about implementational details.

Especially in a collaborative project, initial complexity is death. You need to focus at first, to reach a functioning state supported by a core modder group and then take it from there.

Realism Overhaul works along a pre-exiting framework (reality), thus minizing conflicts of opinion and a lot of balancing issues. That pre-existing framework also kind of auto-generates a core modder group.
BTSM cuts out mod support, thus allowing for very detailed changes in almost all areas, thus creating a cohesive gameplay experience.
SETI (post 0.90) has a very modular setup, while focusing on one module (SETIctt, particularly the mod support) at the moment, thus allowing for modular customization.

And those are the somewhat mature projects (with a hard modder "core"), which started a lot smaller.

Many areas are only loosely connected, like tech progression and part stat balancing (as long as you want to support procedural parts and tweakscale).

There need to be cuts regarding the initial scope, while keeping modularity/scaleability when the scope/mod support widens.
Only incremental improvements will keep such a project going.

[DMagic]

1 hour ago, Yemo said:

I m not completely sure I understand the scope of the project. I unterstand that the long term goals are somewhat similar to the KSP 0.90 SETI BalanceMod, but I m not sure about the process to get in that direction, while there already seems to be a discussion about implementational details.

I'm not really sure either, still.

I haven't seen a clear answer if the intention of this is to point to a set of configs (tech tree, re-balance [both stock and mod], contracts) and say that CCF builds off of those, or if the intention is to simply say that this and that are supported by, or are compatible with, CCF.

It seems to me that the tech tree is such a core component of career mode that you can't really provide any type of balance or progression without nailing that down first.

Some other aspects of career mode, such as contract packs (or, from the sound of it at least, nightingale's strategy mod), make more sense to leave them as suggested or recommended. It's easier to point to contract packs that focus or different types of craft, or that encourage exploration and progression in a certain way and just say that they are supported, without greatly affecting other aspects of career mode.