Sandbox misconceptions?

[regex]

25 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

I'm not convinced that the administration of a real space program can be simulated that way.

I don't want to simulate running a space program, I want the game to feel like I'm running a space program.  Right now there is pretty much zero difference between late game Career mode and Sandbox mode, and that goes doubly for Science mode.  I'd like Career to be meaningful throughout and for time to matter.

[tater]

I always play a career with a new update, or indeed with a new mod set. My favorite topics tend to be bashing KSP Career mode, and how frankly awful it is... it can be slightly improved with mods, but it is fundamentally flawed. I long for a career that would make career the only mode I would play.

I also do sandbox, but while I would not say I have no "goals" in sandbox, I don't run multiple, concurrent missions in sandbox. I tend to pick a goal, then complete it in sandbox. In career I'd do other things waiting for my probe's many year journey to Jool (6.4X), or while my crew was en route to Duna, but in sandbox,I'd launch the parts of my Duna ship, then time warp the mission and do it in one sitting.

3 minutes ago, regex said:

I don't want to simulate running a space program, I want the game to feel like I'm running a space program.  Right now there is pretty much zero difference between late game Career mode and Sandbox mode, and that goes doubly for Science mode.  I'd like Career to be meaningful throughout and for time to matter.

This is so true. Career is perfectly awful, and feels slapped on. It cannot be fixed well within the current framework, it really needs to be scrapped and done from scratch with real direction, IMO.

[Teutooni]

44 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

Suppose they do add a reasonably accurate management simulation. Is it simulating something fun, like rocketry and astrogation? No, it's simulating being a bureaucrat. The more work they put into it, the better a simulation it will become of being a bureaucrat. And if your space program starts to tank, how will it feel if it seems to be happening because something's wrong with the modeling of wages? Better to focus career mode on driving engagement with the core physics gameplay via missions and some kind of tech progression.

Well I think there are two kinds of expectations for a career mode. One group just want a progression system. Another group is dissatisfied with the current career mode (contract slot machine grind) and would like more management aspects to it. Like I said some people actually enjoy management games or "bureaucrat simulators".

For me the current system is fairly pointless, save giving a sense of attachment to the crews and random mission ideas generated by the contracts. Which is why I play career much like sandbox. I've done the progression so many times it's pointless without an added management element to it.

[HebaruSan]

10 minutes ago, Teutooni said:

Like I said some people actually enjoy management games or "bureaucrat simulators".

I think I mis-stated my objection because I was trying to react to too many things at once.

If a bureaucracy simulation is added, will it be satisfyingly "realistic-ish" the way launches and patched conics are today? Will it implement an interesting core concept and allow us to experiment with it in an accessible way, as we have with physics currently? Or will it be a fake bureaucracy that isn't simulating anything, that doesn't teach you anything about the real world? My expectation is that gameplay concerns would force the latter (see: NASA administrator's job isn't actually fun), in which case I would no longer care about engaging with that system. Who cares if my budget is in the red if it's not based on anything?

[regex]

13 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

in which case I would no longer care about engaging with that system. Who cares if my budget is in the red if it's not based on anything?

But ... you think the current system is somehow based on something and is teaching you about how a space program is run?

[HebaruSan]

11 minutes ago, regex said:

But ... you think the current system is somehow based on something and is teaching you about how a space program is run?

No, I play sandbox currently.

[Teutooni]

17 minutes ago, HebaruSan said:

NASA administrator's job isn't actually fun

I'd imagine that's mainly down to the pressure to succeed, interpersonal drama, stress and deadlines and such. I doubt many people really like high pressure management jobs in their entirety. But it would be a game. Did you fail miserably in budgeting? You won't be fired, just start a new game. Distilled down to strategy and resource management without stress and drama, management can be quite fulfilling. This is one reason we play games instead of doing the real thing - no real consequences for failure.

You can argue that KSP should just focus on it's strengths which is building and flying rockets. It's why we're all here, we love building and flying the rockets we make. But that calls to question the point of the career mode over sandbox. I think it's entirely reasonable to expect a career mode to be a light management simulation. The game's called Kerbal Space Program, not Kerbal Rocket Builder or something.

[RW-1]

19 hours ago, Wiseman said:

I can't really play Sandbox for the same reason I can't really play Minecraft. I don't have any motivation to build big/pretty things if the goal is just the satisfaction of doing it. I could get to Duna, drop Kerbals there, a rover, an airplane, whatever, but if there's no framework to guide my actions and provide me incentives and rewards, it feels pointless. That may be because I've put in my time and learned all the basics, though.

Rocket said it better than I was going to:

That's really what it comes down to for me. I need that game structure and framework, or else I feel like I'm just playing with model rockets in my backyard - the pieces are pretty, but the game is all in my head. I find myself more inspired to do neat things in Career, anyways. In my latest game, the Strategia mod helped me to earn enough money such that I never really have to grind, and it gives me potent and clear objectives. With that in mind, I assembled in orbit a large interplanetary vessel, landed a Duna ascent vehicle and science rover, sent a crew up to the vessel in a descent capsule, dropped them on Duna, and then performed a science-gathering road trip in the rover on the way to the ascent vehicle. 

That's a cool mission, and I may have come up with it just as easily in Sandbox, but this way I see tangible rewards for all of my efforts. Piles of funds and science rolling in (since I set up a RemoteTech network ahead of time), and even more when I get the crew back to Kerbin, all sorts of milestones checked off; lots of little Skinner-box lever-pulls I wouldn't have gotten if I had planned this out in Sandbox. 

I agree with the above, (and the post immediately above, which I get to addressing below) and have no issues with anyone who wishes to play sandbox.

But I do wish to say that the (I hope) original intent of KSP was to manage your own space program, that meant finances, labor, parts, expenditures and income (from contracts now) plus the whole parallel science gains to unlock tech in the tech tree.

Sandbox (IMO, because that's what I'd do ->) was offered as an alternative to those who wouldn't want that structure or "Hassle" to get to the good stuff, or had their own intentions for what they wished to accomplish.

90% of people like to do something with a tangible reward for doing so, I believe that is the appeal of the career mode, besides the structure it gives.

I believe I play it for that reason as well, the "challenge", because left to my own devices I'd use later heavier parts to get to orbit the first time, and not get anything for doing so. Same for landing on X ...

I like the challenge given so far. On occasion though working up thru a career an idea strikes, and flipping to a saved sandbox mode lets me immediately test out said idea without consequence to my career path, or more that I might not have the tech to accomplish said idea yet.

Does this mean I'm incapable of setting my own goals vs what the game sets out?  Nope. Plain and simple is that for me, I'm lazy. I work hard, and play hard, and for right now, I find that I don't wish to saddle myself with the added stress (oh yeah it's stressful!  Play without saves or reverts hehehe....) of laying out "Le Grand Plan for Kerbol Exploration" when it's time to boot it up...

 

On the flip side, it is a bit of a chore repeating career starts, etc. You get good at it but ...

 

Oh, and Rege, I see you dropped the flipping Gif, those prone to epilepsy thank you (I'm not in that group but ...)

Edited March 30, 2016 by RW-1

[nobodyhasthis2]

45 minutes ago, regex said:

I don't want to simulate running a space program, I want the game to feel like I'm running a space program.  Right now there is pretty much zero difference between late game Career mode and Sandbox mode, and that goes doubly for Science mode.  I'd like Career to be meaningful throughout and for time to matter.

I can appreciate this and other comments. I am beginning to understand why career mode does not feel right for some people. However I am very curious about how you play the game and was wondering if you could give me a few more personal observations.  

Is the primary problem randomness in the contracts and lack of organized progression? 

Do spend more time flying craft that in the VAB designing them. In other words what is the game focus you find most appealing?

What parts are interesting management problems and which are just "grind" to be cut out?

The primary motivation I have for asking questions like that is one of sheer curiosity. My style of play is different in that I play exclusively career mode but in a heavily modded form. It just does not work at all like anything in the stock game. However in building the game up I often run into all the problems you discuss. So getting your opinion matters. As it provides a good alternative base line to work from. I am curious as to whether or not people think the planned 1.1 contracts fine tuning will help. Or do we need the proposed procedural contracts and administration building overhaul?

There is absolutely no right answers here i am just curious about what flavour KSP you like and is there lessons to be learned, mistakes to be avoided when I rebuild my own version of the career game.

[regex]

While the focus of the thread wasn't intended to be a discussion about how Career mode would be better conversations have a natural "flow" and I'll entertain your questions since we're on the topic.

And before anyone gets up in arms over my answers, this is my opinion and pertains to how I play and perceive the game.

1 hour ago, nobodyhasthis2 said:

Is the primary problem randomness in the contracts and lack of organized progression?

For the most part it has to do with contracts in general.  I have no desire for "organized progression"; if I want to send astronauts to Eeloo after landing on the Mun that should be a factor of how well I can build a craft and whether I can muster enough funds from the budget to do so.  Contracts hinder that process in that they randomly attempt to provide goals rather than allow me to set a goal, or focus, for the space program.  (EDIT: It should also be noted that contracts are pretty much the only way to gather massed funds quickly and thus I am saddled with them.  World's Firsts simply cannot sustain a space program, at least the way I play.)  I would prefer to set a goal, much like Kennedy, and then try to achieve it.  It comes down to control of the space program.

Maybe Strategies could be redesigned to do this, set a focus for the space program?  They're pretty much useless now as-is.

Another problem I have with contracts is the limited number of them as well as the lack of filtering.  I want to see ten~twenty contracts per celestial body in KSP, at all times.  I've been told there are technical limitations to doing this, which is unfortunate.  This reduces choices to basically "playing the slot machine" which is apparently a bad thing given there are now default penalties for doing so.  IMO that's just bad game design, trying to make an odious task more odious to prevent the user from engaging in it.  Yes, it's optionable, but the fact that users "play the slot machine" in the first place should be an indication that something is wrong with the system.

Quote

Do spend more time flying craft that in the VAB designing them. In other words what is the game focus you find most appealing?

I usually play Realism Overhaul which means that spending time in the VAB means much more than stock.  It takes more time, there are more checks to perform, you have to allow for certain things you don't in stock and work around those.  You can't just slap a reaction wheel and few solar panels on something and call it good, you have to design RCS for the transfer stage, RCS for the payload, account for boiloff, ensure roll control either isn't a factor or is accounted for, then you have to make the rocket look good or be exact in dimensions if you're making a replica, etc...  It's just more complex.  I find it engaging, trying out different mission architecture, but it's also very time consuming and I often don't design then fly, it's more of a "on one night I design, on the next I fly".

Flying the craft is just as important to me, though.  It's what I find the most "fun" in the game; executing the plan I've made, seeing the mission go through to success or failure, learning from and correcting the mistakes.

Quote

What parts are interesting management problems and which are just "grind" to be cut out?

Well, there really aren't any "interesting management problems" in KSP.  Even RP-0 basically boiled down to "accumulate fat lucre so you can launch what you want", which is why I just switched back to sandbox to cut the drudgery.  I would like some management problems to solve, ensuring my astronauts are paid, buildings are upkept, rockets rolled out on time, budget accounted for, that sort of thing.  It would go well with the VAB time I already find engaging.

I want to drive the space program, I don't want to feel like I'm at the whim of RNGesus, who I so love in roguelikes but hate in sandbox games.

Quote

I am curious as to whether or not people think the planned 1.1 contracts fine tuning will help.

I don't, but I'll be trying it out in the next few days.

Edited March 30, 2016 by regex

[Norcalplanner]

Regex, you might want to try Strategia. While not fully doing what you're describing, it definitely moves the needle in that direction. Right now in my 1.0.5 6.4x game I've selected "the mun program" which gives me a lot of funds for everything mun related, culminating in a manned mun mission.

[regex]

There are several mods I'm really looking forward to, including Strategia, BROKE, etc...

[tater]

I think what sandbox lacks for me is a feeling of time progression. Hence my "personal scenario" style of play in sandbox. 

Of course, standard career also entirely lacks any sense of time progression. 

[nobodyhasthis2]

33 minutes ago, regex said:

While the focus of the thread wasn't intended to be a discussion about how Career mode would be better conversations have a natural "flow" and I'll entertain your questions since we're on the topic.

Thank you. I appreciate the informative feedback in your answers. You have actually helped me out in fine tuning some personal game builds coming out much later in the year. For me KSP 1.1 is probably 8 to 9 months away. Maybe longer because I will only play much it if it is very heavily modded.  On another note one of things I have been missing is a good Soviet pack that I had to cut out of my 1.0.5 choices. That will definitely be going back into the bigger builds.  

19 minutes ago, regex said:

There are several mods I'm really looking forward to, including Strategia, BROKE, etc...

Strategia is good as "contract slot machine" is an actual strategy to choose. Not sure if you like the whole concept as you seem to want a bit more freedom. It is still tied into contracts system after all. It is none the less an absolutely huge improvement over the stock administration building options. 

[DoToH]

22 hours ago, regex said:

Ideally I'd like a career where rockets took time to build and roll out to the pad, science took time to research, and buildings took time to get built (KCT), where you set individual goals or designed missions and assigned part of the yearly budget to them, minding the upkeep for each project since they might run into the next year, where doing science didn't accumulate you points it instead earned you rep or additional funding for the same area of research, where rep determined your yearly budget, where parts were researched over time, where astronauts had salaries and buildings required upkeep.

Man, I want to play that career.

[Creature]

For me it's really about what I consider to be the "game" in this game. What I want to do is game the system, so to speak. I want to try to find the best and most efficient ways to progress in the game and sandbox really doesn't have that in the same way since it has far less restrictions and fewer game mechanics in place. To me sandbox feels a bit like solving a Rubik's cube with a hammer and superglue - it's more about getting a nice looking cube than actually solving the puzzle. There's always the option to just brute-force your way through anything by making monster rockets and as many launches as you want to get where you want. And I don't mean this as condescending towards sandbox, I enjoy it from time to time a lot, but it's just a fact that there are fewer puzzles there to solve. Sandbox gives me the hammer and glue as legitimate options that I can use if I choose to and I'm not breaking any rules. At least that's what it feels like to me. 

It's the same thing with badly balanced or overpowered parts **coughcoughMPLcoughcough**. If the solution to not breaking your gameplay is "don't use it", it's a badly designed mechanic. I find it difficult to feel satisfaction in playing the game if I have to constantly and consciously stop myself from touching certain parts of the game. In terms of progressive gameplay, sandbox is a bad design for that (obviously since it's designed to be the exact opposite).

Although it wouldn't have to be, had it been designed differently. Take RemoteTech for example. It's a good way to progress in sandbox environment. You really have to launch those relay satellites if you want the comms coverage. Or if you want to get rid of comms delay, use a manned control station. It doesn't help you at all no matter how many free monster rockets you can launch, you still have to do that. So there you have a solid progression element. Same goes for ISRU. If these kinds of elements were present in science and funds and part research, I'd be really happy.

But in the end I'd guess that the people who play sandbox and to whom self-imposed challenges are enough are enjoying a different aspect of the game than those who want career mode to bring the challenges. But yeah, I don't like the career we have right now and I don't get much enjoyment from playing with those mechanics but I guess that's a topic for another discussion.

[theorigin]

Thats funny - i NEVER played sandbox - and i never will

I like the "progression" while you slowly work toward different goals (credits/tech/new planets)... its also alot harder because mistake DO matter! If you loose a good pilot or fail a mission, you create own content (like a rescue mission) on a regular base. Where is the challenge if everything is available from the start?

[bonyetty]

Like most, it seems, of the KSP pre career old timers I prefer sandbox. I have tried each release to play career but return to sandbox with one or two tiers to go in the tech tree. HarvesteR created an amazing novel game. I feel that creativity of this grandeur is very rare. The wonderful fundamentals of KSP gave me a false hopes and expectations of what career mode would be. Hey Einstein was expected to equal or better his theory by many. Career mode to me is a game mechanic that has been done many times before and this is the primary reason I predominantly play sandbox. I like new shiny creative things but like new shiny creative ideas more. 

[tater]

I waver a lot. If career was half-decent, I'd not play anything else... but it's not even half-decent. 

Career is often described by pure-sandbox people as being for "people who lack any imagination," which is entirely wrong... though the KSP career system seems to be designed as if that was the case. Regex is spot on about what career should be, though, which has pretty much no overlap with the career system Squad has given us. Their take has been to double down, and simply give us more lousy, random contracts, when what we need is something utterly different.

On the topic of Sandbox, I'd go so far as to say I'd love a feature that I'd also like to see as an option in career... a randomized solar system (both in scale and available planets/moons. A "seed" that would scale stuff 1-6X, for example (planet size, and distances separately), and perhaps have a library of XX pre-designed planets/moons to choose from, of which only Y are used in any given game. This would pretty much require a progression in even sandbox, as you'd actually need to figure out what works. This creates an instant "career" for the player with no other limitations at all (though a couple like LS and some sort of construction time, or even just an annual budget---would fill it out nicely).

Edited March 31, 2016 by tater

[JohnnyPanzer]

On 2016-03-29 at 10:41 PM, Rocket In My Pocket said:

I feel like this question may have been inspired somewhat by something cheeky I said lol...so I'm gonna pipe in here.

I'll make a comparison to Minecraft to try to get across what I'm trying to say. Minecraft primarily consists of two distinct game play elements, one being mining and the other crafting. Now mining is generally repetitive and somewhat dull, crafting on the other hand is where we get to be creative and stretch our imaginations. Some players for this very reason choose to play in "creative" mode where resources are unlimited, there is no danger, and you can craft as you please. For me personally this is ignoring half the game, and anything constructed in "creative" or "sandbox" mode feels somehow hollow and devoid of any hard work or accomplishment. I'm not impressed at all if you built a tower that's 10,000 blocks tall on creative because you didn't actually have to mine up any of those materials. Likewise, turning KSP on and having access to all of the best parts/level 3 buildings immediately feels cheap to me. It's not that it actually is cheap or cheating...just that it robs you of the experiences you might have had by being more limited, if you've ever designed something that clearly needed a ladder without a ladder because you didn't have ladders yet, you know what I'm talking about. I guess this just boils down to personal character, some people just want to have free form fun, others want a goal to strive for. To use another example World of Warcraft, I have plenty of friends who "bought" level 60,70,80,a million or whatever max level is nowadays, but personally I couldn't enjoy a character I didn't grind all the way up from level 1. Maybe it's an old-school mentality, I got my first NES at 4 years old...to me a game needs to be able to be "beaten" via clearly defined win parameters or it's not a game, maybe were just gluttons for punishment? Ultimately, I don't think either way is wrong, just different.

All that said... is the career mode in KSP terribly good as far as career modes go? No, not really. I really do hope 1.1 improves this.

As someone sitting on the other side of the fence, I actually agree. I very much believe that choosing sandbox or career (no matter the game) gameplay often boils down to a fundamentally different view on what makes a game a game.

I'm one of those people who gets no pleasure out of winning or beating challenges. I honestly have no interest in challenges just for the sake of being challenging. Sure, I can challenge my self during sandbox play, but it's never anything but a side effect of me doing whatever the hell I feel like doing, and that particular thing just happening to be hard to perform. But once I beat a challenge, I never go "Wooo! I made it!", instead I just go "Wow, that was fun in the end. Too bad it was so much work" and then I move on. This is also why I never play competitive games. I don't care enough about winning to really try, and if I do win something it wont merit more than a "meh" from me.

Another reason I enjoy sandboxing so much is because I tend to roleplay all my games, regardless of them being roleplaying games or not. This leads me to save scum a lot, since I want the "story" I'm writing in my head to move in a particular direction, and the less artificial challenges and restrictions, the less I have to re-load my games. A funny side effect of this is that roughly half the time I'll reload because I felt something went to smoothly. I wanted that Mün mission to be a bust, but somehow I managed to stick the landing in the very last moment, so now I have to reload and tell the story the "right way".

In short, structure and artificial limitations makes it harder for me to enjoy my games, and instead turns the game into something I enjoy about as much as I enjoy my actual job.

[tater]

1 hour ago, JohnnyPanzer said:

As someone sitting on the other side of the fence, I actually agree. I very much believe that choosing sandbox or career (no matter the game) gameplay often boils down to a fundamentally different view on what makes a game a game.

I'm one of those people who gets no pleasure out of winning or beating challenges. I honestly have no interest in challenges just for the sake of being challenging. Sure, I can challenge my self during sandbox play, but it's never anything but a side effect of me doing whatever the hell I feel like doing, and that particular thing just happening to be hard to perform. But once I beat a challenge, I never go "Wooo! I made it!", instead I just go "Wow, that was fun in the end. Too bad it was so much work" and then I move on. This is also why I never play competitive games. I don't care enough about winning to really try, and if I do win something it wont merit more than a "meh" from me.

Another reason I enjoy sandboxing so much is because I tend to roleplay all my games, regardless of them being roleplaying games or not. This leads me to save scum a lot, since I want the "story" I'm writing in my head to move in a particular direction, and the less artificial challenges and restrictions, the less I have to re-load my games. A funny side effect of this is that roughly half the time I'll reload because I felt something went to smoothly. I wanted that Mün mission to be a bust, but somehow I managed to stick the landing in the very last moment, so now I have to reload and tell the story the "right way".

In short, structure and artificial limitations makes it harder for me to enjoy my games, and instead turns the game into something I enjoy about as much as I enjoy my actual job.

I think you address some problems with extant KSP career (random challenges apparently for the sake of challenges), but not "Career" as a concept... if that makes any sense. On one hand it's 100% fair, since KSP career is KSP career. Unfortunately, KSP career is simply awful on multiple levels, and if a person's judgement on any notion of career is colored by how KSP does it, that's unfortunate, because career in KSP could actually be good with a decent paradigm in place. Not better, but actually really good. It's like at all the choice of focus branching points, they intentionally made the wrong decisions, lol.

Fine Print addition is a great example. It was an excellent mod for what it did (playing along within the fundamentally broken system), but looked at objectively, it just adds more, random contracts to a career system that feels nothing like running a space program or private rocket company startup.

A few posts mention Minecraft. I'd make another analogy. My kids play creative, which to me is mind-numbing. It's 100% self-driven, so apparently I have no imagination (to those who make that claim regarding KSP Sandbox). Heck, my daughter likes flat worlds to build stuff, which makes creative even more mind-numbing, I prefer architecture to have a landscape context. Survival, OTOH, is also incredibly bad in MC, but when there is an update, and my kids convince me to try it, I always play survival, anyway. Partially because I like coming across cool scenes here and there (a village with a nearby temple half-buried in sand, for example).

Borrowing from this, is part of the reason I'd prefer a randomized Kerbol system as an option. That sense of real exploration would add value in just getting someplace new... Even variants of existing worlds, new maps for the Mun that it can switch between, etc. Instead of frankly lame easter eggs, I'd rather come across a unique, plausible geographical feature now and again. This would add a lot to exploration, IMO. If this included a kind of "fog of war," where you only know what should be known by ground-based astronomy to start, then we instantly have a "career" progression, even in a game that is strictly speaking "sandbox" mode. Take atmospheres, for example. The range of possible values for Venus was huge until the Soviets actually sent a probe. In sandbox, with a random system and certain elements requiring "science" acquired locally to nail down, a crewed mission might be a very bad idea without first sending a probe (or grossly overbuilding your lander/ascent vehicle).

Edited March 31, 2016 by tater
typo

[Vermil]

On 3/29/2016 at 9:58 PM, regex said:

Over the years here I've seen many people on the forums (unironically) claim that playing Sandbox mode precludes goals, planning, and efficiency.  Is it because having everything available reduces all your design problems to "MOAR BOOSTERS"?  Is it a lack of personal goals in the game?  Do you feel there is no impetus to explore concepts, techniques, and places without artificial signposts and point rewards?  Do you feel like personal restrictions aren't enough?  Do you feel the need for some sort of gated progression?

I generally have no problems building efficiently using personal restrictions and following a plan to meet a goal I've set when playing in Sandbox mode, and I'm curious why you feel otherwise?

I'd say my ambitions originally carried me away. I failed at the game in sandbox mode.
The game worked much better for me in science sandbox mode, because it restricted me to a level where I could get a handle and start to explore how achieve gradual goals. This in itself (the exploration of the method of rocket travel) was then fabulously fun.

Currently, I've never felt I need career mode. I set my own goals. They're challenging enough. And since I've now purchased the entire tech-tree and am still wallowing in science points, I suppose I am playing the same as pure sandbox now.

Edited March 31, 2016 by Vermil

[JohnnyPanzer]

Yeah, truth is that I often play "career" in many of the games I play, but I play it using a sandbox mentality. A structured gameplay could potentially give me a framework for my roleplaying, as long as it's easy to ignore at a whim, either by save scumming or by using settings.

I'd even go so far as to say that some campaign features meant to provide a "career" mode can be downright essential to my sandboxy gameplay style. If for example the administration building worked by letting you set up customized programs that would be a godsend from a roleplaying perspective. And finances that relied on allocating zero-sum funds through sliders (think paradox games) would, unlike the current KSP economy, be a great way to finetune the story behind my company. I'm also a statistics nerd, so any game feature that records and archives my actions is a welcome addition to the game, regardless of it's original intention (sandbox or career).

So I guess my initial statement about structured gameplay being bad for me was a bit exagerated. It's more fair to say that I like a structured framework for my sandbox, I just need to be able to tailor the structure as much as possible.

[tater]

Here's one thing that none of the 3 KSP modes do, that I can see in both "campaign" and forms of instant-action in some games---variability/randomness.

Yeah, it's anathema to Squad, but it is a useful gameplay device.

Take a game I actually contributed mods to, Silent Hunter 4. I could bang out a quick map where my boat will come across a convoy, or the Kido Butai in certain waters, then play it to see how I manage. This to me is much like KSP sandbox, since I know the entire setup ahead of time, and I customize it to my liking. Once I'm in range of the targets, however, SH4 is vastly superior to KSP in this regard, since I could play that setup 10 times, and have as many outcomes. Sometimes the escorts detect me early, sometimes they don't. Sometimes I evade the depth charges, sometimes they shack me. There is a little of this in KSP, certainly with atmospheres involved, but any fault/difference is only my fault, there is never a failure, nothing random. In campaign mode, it's even more complex, and I am constantly put in novel situations, and novel situations that compound on each other. A stray H8K spots me in shallow water, and damages the boat. I am now in the middle of a patrol, with a slightly impaired boat, but I don't want to come home empty-handed, so I deal with it. This latter example is exactly why I want a career system that is actually good. I don't need/want it to spam me with random goals, I want the game to result in novel problems to solve, which is a very different thing. An intelligent failure/testing system would add a lot here. I would love to have an Apollo 13 moment, now and again, though clearly that also requires build times, etc., since the KSP solution would be to simply launch a brand new, purpose-built rescue craft minutes after the problem presented itself, lol.

[Tw1]

On 29/03/2016 at 1:45 AM, regex said:

I don't want to simulate running a space program, I want the game to feel like I'm running a space program.  

As another frequent "career mode basher" (to paraphrase Tater), this is exactly why I don't like Career mode that much. It feels like a computer game. 

In sandbox, with a little imagination, you'll have the closest experience to actually running an executing a space program short of signing up to NASA. 

 

Career, with it's arbitrary restrictions and convoluted crew paying systems, insta scans and hold-for-10-seconds, and all that encourages you to think as a gamer, not like a space program director. 

 

For a career game mode to win me over, it would have to model the activities of a space program in a more convincing way, with time based mechanics, rewarding you for productivity in a way that doesn't feel like click to collect fetch quests.

Edited April 1, 2016 by Tw1