early-career landing legs

[m_sporkboy]

The game could use a set of non-retractable landing legs that can reach past a Terrier engine, for use in early-career.  Basically every career I start I'm landing on the engine bell for my first few missions, which is stupid.  Alternately, make the lightest legs about 30% longer, so they'll reach, and move them a tier earlier in the tech tree.

Edited January 14, 2016 by m_sporkboy

[Foxster]

You can make some non-retractable landing legs out of whatever you have unlocked. Like cubic struts and fins. 

[m_sporkboy]

11 minutes ago, Foxster said:

You can make some non-retractable landing legs out of whatever you have unlocked. Like cubic struts and fins. 

Early career you're running into parts count doing that.

[Foxster]

Just now, m_sporkboy said:

Early career you're running into parts count doing that.

Maybe. But four little fins has the same part count as four landing struts. 

[Pthigrivi]

I tend to agree with this. The game really does seem to encourage players to go for a Mun or Minmus mission early, so it makes sense that they'd give us proper legs to do it. Lots of people have said they should start with planes and probes but hooey to that! Id actually like to see a few changes for landing gear: move the LT-1 to Survivability, the LT-05 to Miniaturization. Above that I could see the LT-2 redesigned with a toggleable aerodynamic housing, and an even larger set that either folds out and telescopes or rotates down space x style. 

[Foxster]

Umm...you get the LT-05 at the 2d tier and they are perfect for a little lander. If you over-engineer your lander then just use a couple more. 

[m_sporkboy]

1 hour ago, Foxster said:

Umm...you get the LT-05 at the 2d tier and they are perfect for a little lander. If you over-engineer your lander then just use a couple more. 

They don't work with any of the engines at that tier.  Or the tier after.  You need to wait for the spark, which is in the 90 science tier.  Or use the Thud radial engine, which is extremely overpowered for a small lander.

The terrier is a perfectly good early-career landing engine, except there isn't a set of landing legs that will work with it until much later.

Edited January 14, 2016 by m_sporkboy

[AbacusWizard]

3 hours ago, Foxster said:

Maybe. But four little fins has the same part count as four landing struts. 

Three. Tripods are better (just ask any Martian).

[Foxster]

23 minutes ago, m_sporkboy said:

They don't work with any of the engines at that tier.  Or the tier after.  You need to wait for the spark, which is in the 90 science tier.  Or use the Thud radial engine, which is extremely overpowered for a small lander.

The terrier is a perfectly good early-career landing engine, except there isn't a set of landing legs that will work with it until much later.

I must be missing something here. What's wrong with this?...

Edited January 14, 2016 by Foxster

[Alshain]

55 minutes ago, Foxster said:

I must be missing something here. What's wrong with this?...

I was wondering the same thing.  If you can land on the moon before reaching Tier 3, I will be wholly impressed.  Otherwise, we have landing legs and you can unlock them in 2 launches, possibly less.

 

That said, I do agree the Thud and the Twitch need their tech tree swapped.  There are several items like that which are probably only placed where they are because of the node name, I say change the node name.

Edited January 14, 2016 by Alshain

[Waxing_Kibbous]

From my experience the small gear clears the terrier- try to keep your landing speed pretty slow, less than 2 m/s. Also for Mun landers, in the VAB, you have an option to "lock suspension" on the legs, try that next time. For Minmus, bah, who needs landing gear

Edited January 14, 2016 by Waxing_Kibbous

[Pthigrivi]

Remember this is quite early in the game and low speed landings are pretty challenging for new players. At that stage of the game providing a forgiving landing platform is more important than the fractional weight savings of the tiny legs. 

[Kerbart]

3 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Remember this is quite early in the game and low speed landings are pretty challenging for new players. At that stage of the game providing a forgiving landing platform is more important than the fractional weight savings of the tiny legs. 

Well, that’s one of the problems... Career mode is not exactly suitable to learn the game. It seems more like a challenge mode mode for experienced players than anything else.

Don’t get me wrong, when you start playing KSP it would seem as if Career mode is the way to be gently introduced to more and more parts. And that is mostly true, except for the word gently. That is something that Squad needs to fix, in my book.

[Foxster]

7 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

Well, that’s one of the problems... Career mode is not exactly suitable to learn the game. It seems more like a challenge mode mode for experienced players than anything else.

Don’t get me wrong, when you start playing KSP it would seem as if Career mode is the way to be gently introduced to more and more parts. And that is mostly true, except for the word gently. That is something that Squad needs to fix, in my book.

I agree wholeheartedly with you there. Science mode is much better to start with. Newbies should be directed down that path. 

[Waxing_Kibbous]

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

Remember this is quite early in the game and low speed landings are pretty challenging for new players. At that stage of the game providing a forgiving landing platform is more important than the fractional weight savings of the tiny legs. 

Since the way/reasons people play KSP is so broad it's hard to make general statements- I liked the challenges early on and felt pretty good when I accomplished something that was difficult. I actually like the fact that KSP isn't forgiving, but that's just me

Quote

I agree wholeheartedly with you there. Science mode is much better to start with. Newbies should be directed down that path. 

I don't agree with this- new players need some sort of direction to learn all of the skills. The career does this well sometimes, not so in others eg. rescues are good for rendevous and EVA skills, space stations that can house 7 Kerbals and can hold 2000 fuel early on, that's a bit much. Plus career gives goals, not just a science grind.

[Alshain]

3 hours ago, Kerbart said:

Well, that’s one of the problems... Career mode is not exactly suitable to learn the game. It seems more like a challenge mode mode for experienced players than anything else.

Don’t get me wrong, when you start playing KSP it would seem as if Career mode is the way to be gently introduced to more and more parts. And that is mostly true, except for the word gently. That is something that Squad needs to fix, in my book.

I disagree, career mode is the perfect starting place for newbies and Squad doesn't need to fix a thing.  The difficulty options are there to change the game for Newbies, not the game mode.  Have you ever played a career on Easy?

[Skalou]

26 minutes ago, Alshain said:

I disagree, career mode is the perfect starting place for newbies and Squad doesn't need to fix a thing.  The difficulty options are there to change the game for Newbies, not the game mode.  Have you ever played a career on Easy?

i agree you disagree, even with the same difficulty a beginner will make a lot of contract to unlock the needed parts to reach his goal (for exemple for landing on the Mun: unlock solar panels to feed the angry reaction wheelS, big landing legs, ..., hight part count building for a big rocket,...), and it's great he will learn the previous task better,

and an advanced player will take a shortcut to avoid the contract grinding in better optimizing his missions and take less safety margins.

if it's too hard, do more easier contracts to unlock more powerfull stuff.

6 hours ago, Foxster said:

I must be missing something here. What's wrong with this?...

where is the 'chute?  or why decouple the pod?

[Pthigrivi]

4 hours ago, Kerbart said:

Well, that’s one of the problems... Career mode is not exactly suitable to learn the game. It seems more like a challenge mode mode for experienced players than anything else.

Yeah this has been high in my mind throughout all of my suggestions. Difficulty settings are fine for setting funds and science returns, but they don't reorganize the tech tree. For this there really should be a few thoughtful changes to make progression as manageable and sensible as possible no matter where you place your settings. 

Edited January 15, 2016 by Pthigrivi

[Kerbart]

1 hour ago, Alshain said:

I disagree, career mode is the perfect starting place for newbies and Squad doesn't need to fix a thing.  The difficulty options are there to change the game for Newbies, not the game mode.  Have you ever played a career on Easy?

If you ever played career on Easy you would notice that the tech-tree is still configured backwards, when it comes to learning KSP. Learning should be an experience where experimenting is encouraged in order to learn things, and where those experiments are used to receive encouragement. I don't think it's a wild assumption when I state that for most beginners, their primary milestones will be (a) making orbit and (b) landing on the Mun*.

Neither aren't easy (with zero knowledge) in KSP, especially in Career mode. Orbit... ok, that can be done. But the Mun? With 30 parts or less and a severe mass limitation on the launch pad? Of course, you can grind science and funds to upgrade the buildings. But where's the learning experience in that? One can argue that players have to learn to build efficiently as well, but in that case Career mode has the priorities backwards. First, teach players how to reach space. Then focus on efficiency. Currently in career mode, players are facing many hurdles that are fun challenges for experienced players but limit progress for starters. An FLT-800 tank is in Tier 5. Of course, you can reach the Mun with an FLT-400. I'm sure there'll be hordes of players who are now going to announce that they reached the Mun on a half-empty RCS tank using a gravity slingshot around Minmus, or whatever. But those are not beginners.

The tech tree doesn't offer intuitive progression. It doesn't offer guided progression. And that's ok; it creates a challenge that is fun to overcome. But it does not, in my opinion, create a good environment for learning how to space.

 

 

* yes, we all know that it's actually easier to land on Minmus. But it's further away and there's that pesky plane change. Unless one sticks to training videos, newbies will shoot for the Mun.

[Alshain]

17 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

If you ever played career on Easy you would notice that the tech-tree is still configured backwards, when it comes to learning KSP. Learning should be an experience where experimenting is encouraged in order to learn things, and where those experiments are used to receive encouragement. I don't think it's a wild assumption when I state that for most beginners, their primary milestones will be (a) making orbit and (b) landing on the Mun*.

Neither aren't easy (with zero knowledge) in KSP, especially in Career mode. Orbit... ok, that can be done. But the Mun? With 30 parts or less and a severe mass limitation on the launch pad? Of course, you can grind science and funds to upgrade the buildings. But where's the learning experience in that? One can argue that players have to learn to build efficiently as well, but in that case Career mode has the priorities backwards. First, teach players how to reach space. Then focus on efficiency. Currently in career mode, players are facing many hurdles that are fun challenges for experienced players but limit progress for starters. An FLT-800 tank is in Tier 5. Of course, you can reach the Mun with an FLT-400. I'm sure there'll be hordes of players who are now going to announce that they reached the Mun on a half-empty RCS tank using a gravity slingshot around Minmus, or whatever. But those are not beginners.

The tech tree doesn't offer intuitive progression. It doesn't offer guided progression. And that's ok; it creates a challenge that is fun to overcome. But it does not, in my opinion, create a good environment for learning how to space.

 

 

* yes, we all know that it's actually easier to land on Minmus. But it's further away and there's that pesky plane change. Unless one sticks to training videos, newbies will shoot for the Mun.

So in a nutshell what you are saying is newbies should play science mode instead of career mode because of the tech tree... so they should play science mode... which still has the same tech tree?

Sorry, but you just aren't making any sense at all.

Career mode offers the direction you claim the tech tree doesn't.  It has contracts which, for a while, go in a logical progression... launch a rocket, leave the atmosphere,  orbit kerbin, fly by the mun... and so on.  The tech tree doesn't have that progression which is exactly why newbies shouldn't be starting on science mode.

Edited January 15, 2016 by Alshain

[AbacusWizard]

I think Career Mode has a lot of potential as a learning experience--the tech tree offers a gradual introduction to new parts instead of overwhelming a newbie with everything at once, and the contract system provides inspiration for interesting challenges. The main problems I have with it as it currently stands involve the building upgrades. I can't get much done with only 30 parts (especially if I only have tiny fuel tanks to start with), lack of EVA makes science difficult, and most importantly control groups ought to be available from the very start. (Their absence doesn't make the game more challenging; it just makes the interface annoying.)

 

And while I'm dreaming, I'd like large docking ports to be available earlier.