UI and gameplay changes

[Pez_]

Hi,

I've been a KSP player for a few months now. The first time I played was actually a demo about a year ago but I found the learning curve too steep and the user interface confusing and I might not have played again if I hadn't rediscovered on youtube. I really love the game and want it to be even better. I'll try and be as constructive as possible and give specific suggestions to the problems I see.

1) Map mode or stage mode for getting into orbit?

I don't think the way these modes are split currently makes sense. Say I want to go into orbit, I need to stage, keep track of my fuel, and keep track of my trajectory especially the apoapsis and periapsis.

In the stage mode I can see fuel and stage, but I can't track my orbit in any easy way. In map mode I can control throttle and see the orbit, but I can't stage or see my fuel. This means you have to switch back and forth. Why is it designed like that? Which mode is the player supposed to fly in?

Possible solutions:

- Add values of apoapsis and periapsis to stage mode (like in KER) so that it can be flown from there

- Keep staging and fuel info in map mode so it can be flown from there.

- (My preference) Unify the modes- why are they different anyway? How if you scroll out in stage mode you see the trajectory for adding maneuver nodes etc.

2) Mystery/hidden meat UI and features.

Examples:

- The main space center view. What are the buildings? Surely at least a name should come up when you hover over them?

- "EVA" and "IVA". "What's does that mean?", asks the new player. I suspect many (like me) click IVA and get stuck in cockpit as there is no click button to exit. Googling the controls to find out "c" is the right button probably shouldn't be a part of the learning curve.

- Maneuver nodes. How to move them? You click and drag the circle, is that clear? Why not drag-able arrows either side?

- Fuel transfer? Jetpack? Collecting science from instruments on EVA? Storing science and resetting instruments? I didn't know about any of these things existed before I saw others playing. 

This all helps to frustrate new players.

Solutions:

- Proper button labeling/tooltips.

- Contextual prompts. Free floating kerbal in space -> "Press R for jetpack". 

3) Science gameplay integration

I think quite a few opportunities are missed for the science to be useful other than unlocking new parts. It feels artificial to be just collecting points. I think collecting science should give you information that helps you explore the moons/planets

How about:

- Terrain hidden until survey scan in order to give an incentive to first send a survey probe before trying to land.

- Atmospheric analysis reveals height/density (relative to Kerbin) in map view, to give indication for aerobraking/ if parachutes will work.

- Gravimetric analysis reveals gravitational strength (again, probably relative Kerbin units), added to map view.

- Collect enough and interesting easter egg style sites are revealed.

-----------

I have many more suggestions and could probably keep going but I'll stop there for now. I hope that was helpful- keep up the good work!

[jf0]

Quote

1) Map mode or stage mode for getting into orbit?

I don't think the way these modes are split currently makes sense. Say I want to go into orbit, I need to stage, keep track of my fuel, and keep track of my trajectory especially the apoapsis and periapsis.

In the stage mode I can see fuel and stage, but I can't track my orbit in any easy way. In map mode I can control throttle and see the orbit, but I can't stage or see my fuel. This means you have to switch back and forth. Why is it designed like that? Which mode is the player supposed to fly in?

Possible solutions:

- Add values of apoapsis and periapsis to stage mode (like in KER) so that it can be flown from there

- Keep staging and fuel info in map mode so it can be flown from there.

This. This. This.

add apoapsis, periapsis, time to each, etc to the staging view, fix the 'stage only' fuel calculation in the resources tab (I have never seen it give me the correct amount of fuel when I click the 'stage only button') and change the little roll/pitch/yaw input indicators under staging to show the roll/pitch/yaw RATES not the current vaule of the input! (This is really completely useless, I almost feel like it happened by mistake some one seeing a picture of a space craft control panel and seeing these little needle displays and not realising they actually should show angular rates rather than the current control input...)

 

[Pez_]

On 1/2/2016 at 1:35 AM, jf0 said:

change the little roll/pitch/yaw input indicators under staging to show the roll/pitch/yaw RATES not the current vaule of the input! (This is really completely useless...

 

Actually I use those quite a bit. If you are using SAS to keep your craft pointed straight then the input indicators show the control limits. If they start sliding out one way you know the SAS is going to get overwhelmed and you need to do something, like change throttle or compensate yourself.

I can see it would be useful to have the rates to correct a tumble though.

[KSK]

Perhaps naively, I would have thought that  rates would also help you to monitor SAS. If the needle is hovering near the middle of the dial then SAS is only applying modest corrections but if the needle is swinging further out or, worse, jumping from side to side then SAS is getting overwhelmed.

Anyhow - going back to Pez's original post - I find little to argue with there! I like the suggestions for better Science gameplay (although I think most of them have been suggested elsewhere) and having AP/PE indicators during launch is one of the main reasons, along with the VAB enhancements, why I use KER. It's also past time that there were some proper official resources to handle those kind of user interface issues.I would go old school and provide a manual rather than trying to document every last quirk through in-game tutorials but I'm probably a bit biased in that regard.

If I were a new player, I wouldn't care if the tutorials / manual / official resources didn't teach me much about how to play the game. That's for me to figure out, with the help of other players if necessary. Having to find out about important user interface features from other players though would be annoying and (to me) a sign of less than optimal interface design or documentation.

Edited January 5, 2016 by KSK

[Pthigrivi]

Welcome to the forum Pez, this is such a great post. Its funny after a while playing you tend to just get used to these things, its so helpful to have a fresh eye on this kind of stuff. 

1) I completely agree with your diagnosis, and yeah, switching back and forth can be a bit of a pain, but Im not sure a straight pan-out would solve it. I think in the end switching views is going to be somewhat necessary so you can keep an eye on stage separation (usually to correct later if anything goes wrong) and still be able to look at your trajectory arc to see that you're burning efficiently. What would be helpful is keeping basically all of the UI elements consistent across both views. It might also be nice if the map view defaulted for new flights panned reasonably out and facing north so you had an intuitive perspective on your launch. I generally find I have to manually set that view each time.

2) I agree with basically all of this. Its really just a lot of missing labeling and mouse-over tool-tips. I'm sure this will get filled in over time but thanks for pointing out a few important ones long-time players may simply take for granted.

3) Science I think is the most important gameplay element that needs a real pass. It's been talked about a lot on this board, I don't blame the devs, between aerodynamics and resources and the Unity upgrade and everything else they've had a lot on their plate this year, but more than anything I'd love to see this and a few other key game mechanics tackled next. I think you're on the right track with your feeling that experiments need to provide the player with important information thats useful beyond unlocking the tech tree. I would suggest things like the thermometer enabling heat bars and the gravoli functioning as a biome mapper, but I agree about aerobrake prediction and spotting easter-eggs as cool things that experiments could provide.  I've posted my own thoughts on this a couple of times (here if you're interested), but key among them would be to involve players in the act of experimenting. Make the barometer pay out not based on where its clicked, but how great a vertical swath it passes through while running. Atmospheric analysis could require holding speed and altitude for a few seconds. Seismometers could be impact experiments and Materials bays could be where surfaces samples get gathered and processed. If all an experiment requires of a player is to click it, it ought to simply be automatic.

[MKI]

I ain't going to lie I had pretty much ever issue you stated when I first started.

I also will have to say this game is very complex, its one of those games that hands down needs to be learned to be played. It isn't very use friendly, nor does it offer a way to learn everything directly in the game. But then hey this game is ROCKET SCIENCE right? There is plenty of room for improvement, and I wont say I like its current state as being unhelpful in terms of newer player experience, but then few games are.

I remember there was a certain very popular game that offered no tutorial or anything for the longest time, and left the players to literally google guides for it, It called Minecraft, and if you didn't know how to make a pick in the first 20 mins of the game you were going to get blown up. No guides, no tutorials, no dialog, no hints, nothing.

 

1.KER or Kerbal Engineer Redux helps, and is pretty much a mainstay mod if you plan on playing this game with any seriousness. The reason why some of its key functions are stock  is a mystery to me and I believe are design decisions. (Especially in the case of Delta-V)

It gives AP, PE and time to both, thus allowing you to fly in normal view to orbit with no problems. (or IVA if you want the Orbiter Experience ;D)

 

2. Last I checked when you start career they tell you about the buildings just to give you a heads up.

Most of these are in controls. As most games are, especially complex simulation games there is no way to get through every single control without unnecessary amounts of dialogs or popups. I've see training done very well (Armar3) and also very sparsely (Orbiter) to nothing directly in game (IL-2) all of these games are more or less complex to KSP and are all very popular.

Advance things such as mining and drilling require tutorials, since they were literally added just months ago I'm not amazed there are no tutorials for them.

3. The idea of finding game play information from science experiments is something I've never heard of and like. But there is also the issue of throwing numbers at your face, on top of numbers, and gathering numbers. You just mentioned how Science isn't well explained, adding in real science that can apply to missions is helpful to some, but for most it isn't necessary. Personally knowing when parachutes pop-open on Laythe helps, but then again these are VERY minor details. The big details are things I look up ahead before hand.

 

Overall the lack of in-game information forces players to look elsewhere, namely online. This is something I think that made the community of this game pretty strong. There are great mods out there because of it, namely mods such as Kerbal Engineer, great information and tutorials made by the community. Best of all the Devs aren't spending time implementing these hints because there are everywhere outside of the game.

Yea this is somewhat of a cop-out from changing what is more or less a difficult and demanding game, but it also is an efficient way to create a hard game that anyone can play with help from the community. At the end of the day, you came here to say the game is hard, but your here where you CAN find the answers. As I'm sure MANY players have done and a good amount have stuck around.

[Pthigrivi]

On January 5, 2016 at 4:58 PM, MKI said:

Personally knowing when parachutes pop-open on Laythe helps, but then again these are VERY minor details. The big details are things I look up ahead before hand.

Being able to see when parachutes seems pretty critical to me, especially for new players. Re-entry has gotten a lot more difficult with 1.0.5 and making sure you can get your speed down before its too late is really important. I'd be reluctant to make this experiment dependent in fact.

On January 5, 2016 at 4:58 PM, MKI said:

Overall the lack of in-game information forces players to look elsewhere, namely online. This is something I think that made the community of this game pretty strong. There are great mods out there because of it, namely mods such as Kerbal Engineer, great information and tutorials made by the community. Best of all the Devs aren't spending time implementing these hints because there are everywhere outside of the game.

Yea this is somewhat of a cop-out from changing what is more or less a difficult and demanding game, but it also is an efficient way to create a hard game that anyone can play with help from the community. At the end of the day, you came here to say the game is hard, but your here where you CAN find the answers. As I'm sure MANY players have done and a good amount have stuck around.

I tend to think there are plenty of challenges players face that they might go online and ask help for, they shouldn't have to go online to find out "c" gets them out of IVA. With so much going on the game should really bend over backwards to provide players with the information they need to play. There's certainly a balance between overwhelming new players with more data than they can handle and giving intermediate players access to things like transfer windows and dV ratings. I don't think they need to go as far as KER, but somehow, staged into building upgrades and fed with experimental data perhaps, tools could be provided that would help them move to interplanetary missions without mods or eye-balling planet angles with olex. 

I imagine the devs know this. A lot has been filled in and I'm sure there's more to come. 

Edited January 7, 2016 by Pthigrivi

[Pez_]

On 1/5/2016 at 10:41 AM, KSK said:

Having to find out about important user interface features from other players though would be annoying and (to me) a sign of less than optimal interface design or documentation.

Nail on the head. 

On 1/5/2016 at 9:58 PM, MKI said:

The reason why some of [KER's] key functions [aren't] stock is a mystery to me and I believe are design decisions. (Especially in the case of Delta-V)

I think you are right, but they are strange ones that they haven't followed through with. If we are supposed to eyeball things instead of using delta V, then why are maneuver nodes in delta V? If the idea is we don't use delta V, then wouldn't it make more sense to display in terms of how much of your fuel it will use? That idea runs into other problems (how big a fuel burn do I need to reduce my surface speed by 200 m/s?) which I think makes the case that I really needs to be in dV and shown.

11 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

I don't think they need to go as far as KER, but somehow, staged into building upgrades and fed with experimental data perhaps, tools could be provided that would help them move to interplanetary missions without mods or eye-balling planet angles with olex

Good point and I think KER already points the way to do this. In career mode there's a module you add to access KER. Maybe split it into a basic and advanced version and have them unlocked along the tech tree.

Interplanetary angles was another thing I would have mentioned. I guess the simplest solution would be to have the tracking station list upcoming transfer windows after one of it's upgrades. There's a balance there though (as I think you mentioned) part of the fun is learning how these things work rather than being handed them.

[MKI]

On 1/7/2016 at 4:21 PM, Pthigrivi said:

Being able to see when parachutes seems pretty critical to me, especially for new players. Re-entry has gotten a lot more difficult with 1.0.5 and making sure you can get your speed down before its too late is really important. I'd be reluctant to make this experiment dependent in fact.

I tend to think there are plenty of challenges players face that they might go online and ask help for, they shouldn't have to go online to find out "c" gets them out of IVA. With so much going on the game should really bend over backwards to provide players with the information they need to play. There's certainly a balance between overwhelming new players with more data than they can handle and giving intermediate players access to things like transfer windows and dV ratings. I don't think they need to go as far as KER, but somehow, staged into building upgrades and fed with experimental data perhaps, tools could be provided that would help them move to interplanetary missions without mods or eye-balling planet angles with olex. 

I imagine the devs know this. A lot has been filled in and I'm sure there's more to come. 

Blowing up is a big part of the game, since its not much of a simulator. (Go play Orbiter if you want that) The game is far more of of a physics game than anything. The game so far always tilts to using F5 to figure out how to get through something, rather than give you data on how to prevent that something.

Hell we still don't have Delta-v readings just for that reason. So new players and old players alike have 1 way to figure out how to accomplish their goals, try them. IF things don't go right, then F5 and reload.

Controls are in the settings, like most games looking at the controls is pretty straight forward to knowing how to play the game. The "c" to get out of IVA will probably be implemented. There's already displays for when Kerbals are in EVA.

This game has never been friendly to the newer players. In truth it's never been friendly what so ever. Without KER/Mechjeb this game would be akin to playing one of those many super hard side scrolling games were deaths per level reach the hundreds.

All of it is defiantly a design decision, which may or may not change. If they Devs are set on keeping things very much up to trial and error, to see explosions and feel failure,then we probably wont get helpful readings in any way or form.  Or they could give way to giving information to the player that helps them stay out of problems with an abundance of information.

But then again as of right now, stock I have almost no idea if my ship can get to orbit let alone figure out when my parachutes deploy above Eve. The only way I'd know is to try. (Name of the game yo)

[Pthigrivi]

Yeah this I think is where game progression really comes into play. That trial and error stage is hugely valuable and kind of critical to the early stages of playing, where you're trying to get a sense of how much fuel you need for different stages, attempting to gain an intuitive knowledge of ISP and launch profiles. No matter what, this stage is going to be hard, and keeping things clean and uncluttered from information overload seems smart. This initial informationless stage to me really extends to a players first successful orbit. Next players naturally will be gunning for a Mun or Minmus mission. Even at this point they don't really need to worry too much about delta-V--just starting to get acquainted with maneuvers and landing seems plenty. It's after this point as players start to move into mounting interplanetary missions that things like delta-V and transfer windows become really invaluable. There's no reason this kind of staged information growth couldn't be managed through building upgrades--granting things like alarms and dV and mission planning at tiers 2 or 3 out of 4.

As you've said, this game is plenty hard. What should be the focus is helping players to improve. Trial and error is a big part of learning, but in the later stages of the game it can be a huge time suck, and draws players into laborious, repetitive gameplay rather than allowing them to focus on the elements of the game that are most fun. Think about it, if you were a new player with no transfer window information how many probes would you have to send to Duna to figure out the optimum window? How many hours of gameplay would you spend trying to answer this one question? 2? 6? 10 hours? And that for each planet? That seems completely insane to ask of players, which is why people use KAC and olex to do it for them, because its not a good use of in-game time. If you run out of fuel trying to reach the Mun, no biggie, send a rescue mission. But if you're building a multi-launch, orbitally constructed Jool mission you're going to need a dV estimator or risk wasting an incredible amount of time. This is the same reason I've advocated making science experiments involve themselves in the act of flying or become automatic, so that in-game time can be spent learning, flying, and exploring, rather than endlessly clicking through parts. 

More than that though, a game really ought to be at least a self-contained playable experience. If stock players have to pause play, minimize the game, open a browser and search through online dV charts and transfer angle calculators something is wrong. Tools necessary to play the game should be in the game, and not require pulling players out of the experience and wasting time searching online. 

Edited January 9, 2016 by Pthigrivi