Make First Optimal Duna Transfer Window Happen Sooner

[FungusForge]

7 minutes ago, regex said:

I have one that makes the Sun reasonably scaled instead of stupid huge in the sky.

Ooh, mind sharing it?

[tater]

In order to role play career, you need to warp a lot and make time progress, else you cannot think anything except that your space program sprang from the ground, and you started doing all the things inside of year one. I always use life support, and that alone pushes it out to a couple years, typically (I say typically, but I also usually play with larger scales and stock parts, so who knows). That;s still too short.

I think that the devs tend to think that career is played by running missions to completion, and hence think time is not as much of a problem, then they never reuse anything (i.e.: a new "science from space around Duna would prompt them to build an entirely new craft, even though they have an orbiter there). So a mission to Duna moves the clock forward a few years, whereas I would launch the craft, then do other stuff during transit (concurrent missions). I virtually never warp more than perhaps a couple weeks to a maneuver node once a craft is close to a corse correction.

The number one factor missing in career is time being a thing.

Look at the (bad) rescue missions. No time limit that means anything. If some astronaut is stranded around Duna, I want him in  a craft that could plausibly survive for X years, and I want that time limit. I might actually do those---build a craft that can go to duna NOW, with a bad window, in a travel time that gets it there in time to save the kerbal.

[Guest]

9 hours ago, FungusForge said:

Ooh, mind sharing it?

Sure.

Spoiler

@Kopernicus[Kerbol?System]:AFTER[Kopernicus]
{
    %Body[Sun]
    {
        %Properties
        {
            %radius = 69634200
            %gravParameter = 1.17233279483249E+18
        }
        %ScaledVersion
        {
            %Light
            {
                %sunAU = 3620084084
            }
        }
    }
}

 

 

3 hours ago, tater said:

I think that the devs tend to think that career is played by running missions to completion

I actually think they think people play all kinds of ways and are trying to accommodate the greatest amount of players.  This results in a watered-down experience for those who want a management sim-style game.

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(i.e.: a new "science from space around Duna would prompt them to build an entirely new craft, even though they have an orbiter there).

You're totally right, dudes like @Arsonide are just too dumb to recognize the possibility that people put satellites into orbit purely to scum easy money contracts.

Quote

So a mission to Duna moves the clock forward a few years, whereas I would launch the craft, then do other stuff during transit (concurrent missions). I virtually never warp more than perhaps a couple weeks to a maneuver node once a craft is close to a corse correction.

Given that it's totally possible to run concurrent missions in the stock game this has probably been taken into consideration.

It's a bit tedious, but I had four transfers (two to Jool, one to Duna, and one from Eve to Kerbin) going at once in the pre-release and just kept track of them outside the game.  It does feel more like work than, say, KAC and it's nothing like some people run where they send a "fleet" to a location, but it's doable.

It would also be the height of stupidity to assume that the devs aren't aware of things like KAC considering they hired the modder who wrote it.

Quote

The number one factor missing in career is time being a thing.

Not disagreeing, but in order to accommodate the greatest amount of players time may not be able to be a thing.  Time actually does count for transfer windows though, and that can eat up a lot of warp time.  If you play the easy-mode game you can just scum all the science from Mun and Minmus and call it a day, but you're cheating yourself.  Last time I did a career run I played half science and went to the Mun once and Minmus twice (although flag planting there is a reliable source of income).  Transfers ate up a lot of time, I was in Earth year 6 by the time I gave up due to uncontrolled craft bugs and still had plenty of science to unlock.

Before you get all up-in-arms, yeah, I don't think career mode is anywhere near what it could be because it's trying to be something to way too many people at the moment.  That's a design choice in and of itself; we may just be stuck with using mods to make it meaningful in whatever way to the individual.  If you're playing vanilla you're going to have to role-play or set yourself some limits to make it meaningful, just like we used to do before career even existed.

Edited April 27, 2016 by regex

[tater]

I gave up vanilla (except new release testing) a long time ago.

The problem with farming funds, etc, is that the game is built that way. I think I will next try some budget mods, instead of the normal career funds paradigm. While I could land on the Mun/Minmus only once, I actually like the Mun a lot, and tend to make bases there (just because). Science is another issue. Even with ETT as my tree, since I use LS, I cannot do a minimalist Duna mission, I need larger stuff (particularly at 6.4X). I suppose I can mess with a vanilla plus LS and see how that goes. LS alone adds real time progression, and would do even better if the tech tree had life support improvements that made unlocking the tree more critical (you'd have to improve capability to go far afield, which takes time).

Edited April 27, 2016 by tater

[Alshain]

Farming funds is not my issue, there are some contracts I won't do, and others I will but usually I can find enough to get what I need, along with learning to build more cost effective rockets.  My bigger issue is collecting the N'th goo report from the N'th biome.  To me that is worse than the contract system.  I tend to grab all the unique science mods I can find, Sounding Rockets, ScanSat, Orbital Sciences, Station Science, etc.

Edited April 28, 2016 by Alshain

[tater]

Oh, I'm with you there.