trying to tie the loose ends of career

[nikokespprfan]

So career seems to have its problems. The following thread is one of many complaints I've seen.(http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/127964-my-disappointment-in-career-mode-and-10-in-a-whole/&page=1). 

The following posts in that thread got me thinking: (by archnem) http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/127964-my-disappointment-in-career-mode-and-10-in-a-whole/&page=2#comment-2325754 ,  (by tater) http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/127964-my-disappointment-in-career-mode-and-10-in-a-whole/&page=2#comment-2325821 , (by pthigrivi) http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/topic/127964-my-disappointment-in-career-mode-and-10-in-a-whole/&do=findComment&comment=2339140.

This is the result of that thinking.

I have an idea to tie up all the loose ends of career. It will work alongside with the current contract system and the future contextual contracts.

World Firsts -> milestones

If you were to order all the world firsts in order of achieving them, you get a tree. Let's call it the progression tree. This is already in the game. Now, imagine an extra tab in mission control that shows you this tree, and expand it to contain all possible milestones (I call the world firsts from now on milestones) that you could achieve in the game (for example: achieving stable orbit, getting a Kerbol escape trajectory, enter the SOI of Jool or landing at Eve and coming back safely). A milestone that you have passed will be shown in a different colour. Now you can easily see your progress in the game and the game will always show you new possible challenges to do.

Missions

But why is a progression tree useful, why put in time to make this? because missions. Missions are the game's equivalent of NASA saying "We are going to the Moon within this decade" or "I want to send a probe for a fly-by mission of the Pluto-Charon system". This means, you get to decide what YOU want to do. You choose ANY one or multiple milestones from the progress tree and set them as your end goal (ANY, its a sandbox game after all, the progress tree wont stop you from doing too ambitious missions). Ten you specify some more things (type of craft crewed/not crewed and deadline for example), it will all go in a mission contact and there you go. You will see a mission contract appear in the contract menu. These missions will generate contextual contracts within the lines of the mission, and thus you will have to do less boring contracts to pay the bill.

Reputation

So you will get these contracts, but the quality and quantity of those contracts will depend on how seriously all the companies take your mission goals. This is determined by the ambitiousness of the missions, but also by reputation. This balances the entire mechanic and makes reputation worth more. More reputation means more thrust in your capability's means more better more useful contracts means less boring sidequesty ones.

 

This mechanic shows the player what he/she has achieved, and will show more possible challenges to undertake. You decide what mission (you design your own mission, even) you want to do, and then you find contracts that pay for that mission (you could now too, but that isn't very apparent, as some players saw contracts as missions). 

What do you think, is this a good idea?

Edited January 1, 2016 by nikokespprfan

[Mystique]

Ideas look good, especially about possibility to choose main direction of program and to receive related contracts (like "we declare that we go to Mun" and receive bunch of contracts to test parts on Mun, do some science stuff or deliver some giant sponsor's billboard, etc).

Regarding reputation, I see it a bit different: as you complete basic contracts and your rep goes up, clients start to take you seriously and offer contracts with higher payments, but also with more complex/strict requirements and higher fines (i.e. if you're so serious, then fulfill your obligations or face financial consequences). If you fail some contract(s), you'll lose rep and new contracts will be of lower grade - simple, but cheaper. This way system should be self-balancing and offer to do it either by quality of quantity, which is more convenient for player.

[pandaman]

Some good ideas there.

As much as the whole career system needs an overhaul, if its possible to change the exiting basic structure to work better without a complete rewrite then that's a better solution.

[monstah]

Hey, I'm impressed! Usually these threads to "fix the game" are pretentious; this one builds on something simple, feasible and with (I think) actual positive impact on the game!

I endorse this.

Just a note, I am voting "Yes", but I think the answer is not exactly right, since this is not the problem with career (although it is the most noticeable). I think it does fix most of the issues with career, tho.

[tater]

I'd like to see another voting option, that it would help solve the problems with career---which it would. Hence I didn't vote. I think that the tech tree and science are also part of the problem with career, and they are all tangled together, but yeah, you have a good start here.

[nikokespprfan]

6 minutes ago, tater said:

I'd like to see another voting option, that it would help solve the problems with career---which it would. Hence I didn't vote. I think that the tech tree and science are also part of the problem with career, and they are all tangled together, but yeah, you have a good start here.

 

56 minutes ago, monstah said:

Hey, I'm impressed! Usually these threads to "fix the game" are pretentious; this one builds on something simple, feasible and with (I think) actual positive impact on the game!

I endorse this.

Just a note, I am voting "Yes", but I think the answer is not exactly right, since this is not the problem with career (although it is the most noticeable). I think it does fix most of the issues with career, tho.

Thanks, I changed the poll.

[tater]

Voted

[Pthigrivi]

So yeah, I dig it man. I think it could be simplified even though. I'm totally on board for being able to view World Firsts and track one's progress. It might be nice also to see what the reward would be for reaching those milestones ahead of time. There's a UI question there, with 17 bodies, 4 major milestones each, plus possible hidden easter egg milestones. New players might be a little overwhelmed sorting through all that, so it might be nice to stage it a little, say by making Kerbin missions available only, then the Mun and Minmus, then opening it up to the rest of the Kerbol system.

It's the "Missions" though where I actually don't think a player even needs to specify that much. The specific problem people are having it seems is that they are waiting for the "Explore" contracts to appear and they don't know how close they are getting one. This where I was suggesting World First/Explore contracts really should always be available, but only offer advances if a player has enough rep. Just as the reward for completion should always be listed for milestones, advances aught to tell you how much rep you need to earn them. If you've selected "Fly-by Eve" or "Plant a flag on Minmus" there's really no need to specify whether the mission will be crewed or not. After accepting an advance a player can just head over to the VAB and start building. 

This is why I say its mostly a question of how things are presented. If the other randomly generated contracts were categorized by body under the Milestones a player could pick and chose side-missions they'd like to dovetail or daisy-chain together, or do on their own for some quick cash/rep. Having those kinds of curveball constraints and rewards for say building a surface outpost or placing a satellite in a polar orbit are still really valuable, and help push a player toward things they may not have thought of doing before. 

Edited December 29, 2015 by Pthigrivi

[egoego]

On 29.12.2015 at 11:11 AM, nikokespprfan said:

World Firsts -> milestones

...

Having the milestones displayed as such a tree is a nice thing to have. Currently we lack a display of what we have achieved so far, with this tree it should be easy.

On 29.12.2015 at 11:11 AM, nikokespprfan said:

Missions

...

Choosing your own missions plays well with the sandbox idea behind KSP. Having these missions tied to milestones gives the game a chance to react to our mission choices. I like that idea. Having the option to add constraints (e.g. reaching a milestone within the next 2 years) improves on the abillity of the game to react to your choice. What kind of constraints are possible is up to the developers, they have to find a way to track them. Missions could be something like this:

• First milestone: Land on Minmus
• Second milestone: Orbit Duna
• First constraint: Ship must have part X (e.g. Science lab)
• Second constraint: Ship must have N kerbals on board
• Third constraint: Must be achieved before date D

Where the user decides which (and how many) milestones he wans to put into one mission (he could have multiple different missions instead) and what (and how many) constraints go into that mission.

[Pthigrivi]

48 minutes ago, egoego said:

 

• First milestone: Land on Minmus
• Second milestone: Orbit Duna
• First constraint: Ship must have part X (e.g. Science lab)
• Second constraint: Ship must have N kerbals on board
• Third constraint: Must be achieved before date D

 

Therein lies the problem with this idea though, doesn't it? Under this system you could end up being asked by the game to haul a goliath to the surface of Tylo and back, or bring ISRU and do science in a place that has almost no ore. In many ways locking together milestones and constraints into 'missions' leads to a situation worse than what we have now, because players will be forced to accept specific (possibly silly) requirements in order to do the missions they want, rather than being able to chose. To solve this they'd either have to specify almost everything about the mission including landing site and what parts they do or don't want, or endlessly cycle through a slot machine of constraints until they found one they like. At that point why not just play Sandbox and avoid the hassle? Much better I think to keep the Milestones separate, and continue to offer a series of optional side-mission constraints that a player could chose from. If we were offered say 3-10 side-contracts per body depending on rep players could much more easily tailor their missions on their own.

 

Edited December 30, 2015 by Pthigrivi

[nikokespprfan]

19 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

So yeah, I dig it man. I think it could be simplified even though. I'm totally on board for being able to view World Firsts and track one's progress. It might be nice also to see what the reward would be for reaching those milestones ahead of time. There's a UI question there, with 17 bodies, 4 major milestones each, plus possible hidden easter egg milestones. New players might be a little overwhelmed sorting through all that, so it might be nice to stage it a little, say by making Kerbin missions available only, then the Mun and Minmus, then opening it up to the rest of the Kerbol system.

It will be a big tree, but hiding some of it is to be avoided, in my opinion, as it prevents the player from setting some of the hidden milestones as mission goal. I do agree that it will become a very big tree, so any maybe an option for the player to hide some of it is a good idea.

7 hours ago, egoego said:

• First milestone: Land on Minmus
• Second milestone: Orbit Duna
• First constraint: Ship must have part X (e.g. Science lab)
• Second constraint: Ship must have N kerbals on board
• Third constraint: Must be achieved before date D

The milestones themselves are predetermined by the game in the progress tree, in such a way that by achieving the end goal, you will have achieved the previous milestones (unless you use hyperedit).  You make a mission by clicking on any milestone in the tree and setting that as an end goal of a mission. The milestones in you orbit duna missions would be launch ->height records -> escape atmosphere -> get to interplanetary space -> entering Duna's SOI -> orbit Duna. The land on minmus thing would be a separate mission or a second end goal of said mission

6 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

In many ways locking together milestones and constraints into 'missions' leads to a situation worse than what we have now, because players will be forced to accept specific (possibly silly) requirements in order to do the missions they want, rather than being able to chose. To solve this they'd either have to specify almost everything about the mission including landing site and what parts they do or don't want, or endlessly cycle through a slot machine of constraints until they found one they like. At that point why not just play Sandbox and avoid the hassle? Much better I think to keep the Milestones separate, and continue to offer a series of optional side-mission constraints that a player could chose from. If we were offered say 3-10 side-contracts per body depending on rep players could much more easily tailor their missions on their own.

 

You will not be forced to accept super specific requirements (those are for the contracts that will spawn, but you don't have to accept those ones). You design your own missions, you can make them a specific as you want. And if you want to specify having a science lab on board. (maybe it just HAS to be a Science station that goes there in your mind), you can, but you will not be forced to specify it at all. The only thing you would probably be forced to specify is the deadline date, and maybe whether it is manned or what kind of craft will do the mission.

I think the constraints should be for the contracts and the physics involved in your missions.

[Pthigrivi]

8 hours ago, nikokespprfan said:

It will be a big tree, but hiding some of it is to be avoided, in my opinion, as it prevents the player from setting some of the hidden milestones as mission goal. I do agree that it will become a very big tree, so any maybe an option for the player to hide some of it is a good idea.

This is why I thought all that really needs to be done is to organize contracts by body. All you need are a set of icons across the top or side of the Mission Control menu for each planet, with moons perhaps in mouse over drop-downs. Clicking on any one of them could bring up the available contracts for that body. Always at the top would be the Flyby, Orbit, Land and Flag contracts. Each could have preset advances, rewards, and deadlines. So long as they were always available I don't see a reason they need to be radically reprogrammed. 

8 hours ago, nikokespprfan said:

You will not be forced to accept super specific requirements (those are for the contracts that will spawn, but you don't have to accept those ones). You design your own missions, you can make them a specific as you want. And if you want to specify having a science lab on board. (maybe it just HAS to be a Science station that goes there in your mind), you can, but you will not be forced to specify it at all. The only thing you would probably be forced to specify is the deadline date, and maybe whether it is manned or what kind of craft will do the mission.

I guess my question is what is the reason to enter anything at mission control? What's the utility of telling the game we plan to include a science lab ahead of time? Can't we just accept the contract and head off to the VAB? And if we are specifying our own deadline why have deadlines at all?

Edited December 31, 2015 by Pthigrivi

[nikokespprfan]

23 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

I guess my question is what is the reason to enter anything at mission control? What's the utility of telling the game we plan to include a science lab ahead of time? Can't we just accept the contract and head off to the VAB? And if we are specifying our own deadline why have deadlines at all?

well, of course you need to specify the end goal of your mission. The utility of the science lab, its not necessary. The deadline though is important as it tells the game when to stop generating contracts. Not every mission has to succeed, after all, so there has to be a second way for the mission to disappear, next to succeding.

[tater]

"Real" space program missions (NASA/ESA/etc) are budgeted. KSP really needs a distinction between commercial contracts ("We'd like to hire you to put this spacecraft into the following orbit, please.") and "real" missions the player choses. It seems like the player could chose the body and mission type, and the game might offer budget choices to accomplish this mission based upon rep/science total, etc. That or you get the budget, and the cost of the craft involved weights the rep score you get (more rep the less you spend).

[pandaman]

20 hours ago, tater said:

"Real" space program missions (NASA/ESA/etc) are budgeted. KSP really needs a distinction between commercial contracts ("We'd like to hire you to put this spacecraft into the following orbit, please.") and "real" missions the player choses.

This makes a lot of sense.

Maybe players can choose how commercial they want their agency to be on starting the game...

NASA equivalent = budgeted, maybe with a less varied selection of 'missions' to reflect the 'government interest' nature of the agency, but can get extra funds, rep, science (and player experience) by taking on commercial contracts.

SpaceX equivalent = starting 'investment' funds from Elon Kerman. Further funds etc from commercial contracts alone.  Maybe with 'government interest' contracts being less common and more linked to rep as the agency shows competence and the government gains confidence in their abilities.

[tjsnh]

4 minutes ago, pandaman said:

This makes a lot of sense.

Maybe players can choose how commercial they want their agency to be on starting the game...

NASA equivalent = budgeted, maybe with a less varied selection of 'missions' to reflect the 'government interest' nature of the agency, but can get extra funds, rep, science (and player experience) by taking on commercial contracts.

SpaceX equivalent = starting 'investment' funds from Elon Kerman. Further funds etc from commercial contracts alone.  Maybe with 'government interest' contracts being less common and more linked to rep as the agency shows competence and the government gains confidence in their abilities.

There is a mod out there .. trying to remember the name of it .. you basically pick a kerbalized version of the USA or USSR and it gives you an annual budget based on how you're doing (kerbals not dying, expanding exploration, stations, etc etc). My mind is drawing a blank, but it's a great mod for this kind of thing.

[Pthigrivi]

On 12/30/2015 at 6:12 PM, tater said:

"Real" space program missions (NASA/ESA/etc) are budgeted. KSP really needs a distinction between commercial contracts ("We'd like to hire you to put this spacecraft into the following orbit, please.") and "real" missions the player choses. It seems like the player could chose the body and mission type, and the game might offer budget choices to accomplish this mission based upon rep/science total, etc. That or you get the budget, and the cost of the craft involved weights the rep score you get (more rep the less you spend).

Yeah I mean I think this gets right to the heart of what KSP can be. There's something wonderful about the open-endedness of sandbox, but there's also a great deal of value in constraints and progression. It's how to balance those I think that Squad has been wrestling with for the last year or so with the contract system. A number of cool changes were made for 1.0.5, but I'll be honest between World Firsts, Explore contracts, Passive Progress Rewards and Milestones the waters feel a bit muddy in terms of core exploration. At its heart this is a game about players building rockets and going places. At the moment the tech tree is the default goal of the game, but by rights seeing just how far and how efficiently one can go (and how much they can do when they get there) ought to be the terms upon which progress is measured. It should be up front and clear as day. In any open-world game there are plenty of random events, tasks and opportunities, but the central goal is always obvious, understandable, and always available. This is what those main exploration contracts should be for Kerbal. What's great is they have every opportunity to be non-linear. A player could chose to go to Minmus or the Mun first, send a probe to Jool, visit an asteroid or mount a Duna mission next. That choice, various risks and rewards, should really be up to the player, not randomly assigned contracts, no matter how cleverly programmed.

Annual budgets could be fine, but again I worry about how difficult that might be to balance. Sometimes simple is best. That's why I suggested up-front advances earned through rep. They could even scale, with more rep earning higher advances, but players need to be able to see how much rep they need to get what they want so they can make informed choices. So a planet's contract list could look something like this:

Mun:

 

- Explore the Mun

     - Fly by the Mun [completion reward]

           - X Advance [Y advance after Z rep]

     - Achieve Orbit around the Mun [completion reward]

           - X Advance [Y advance after Z rep]

     - Land on the Mun [completion reward]

           - [X advance after Y rep]

     - Plant a Flag on the Mun [completion reward]

           - [X advance after Y rep]

 

- Ferry VIP to Orbit around the Mun [completion reward]

           - X Advance

 

- Collect readings around X [completion reward]

           - X Advance

 

- Place satellite in stable orbit around the Mun [completion reward]

           - X Advance

 

 

At that point a player truly has the freedom to go wherever they wish, so long as they have the funds and skill to get there, which I think ultimately is what players really want.

 

Edited January 1, 2016 by Pthigrivi

[tater]

Or you take your list above, and instead of completion rewards, you get advances (a budget to accomplish that mission). The failure punishments (in some reasonable time period scale to travel time, perhaps, since time doesn't normally matter in KSP) would be harsh. Perhaps each mission has an initial milestone that must happen within a very short time period, like making a maneuver that results in an SoI interaction within XX days of accepting.

So you could accept a contract to Lathe and Eeloo in tier 1 if you want, but you'd be required to succeed in setting up the encounter just a few days after you took the mission, which would be pretty unlikely in tier 1 (but would be spectacular success if you did).