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Rethinking KSP's career mode


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2 hours ago, drhay53 said:

For my 0.02, as a scientist myself, the 'end-game' for me revolves around setting up stations and bases to do science. So personally I love the science aspect of KSP and wish is was the entire POINT of progression, rather than the method of progression.

Hence my harping for a true "explore" mode with a semi-randomized solar system (rational positions for different types of worlds, clearly no ice giants at a Mercury type orbit, etc). Then I'd have science actually useful. You'd do science not just for "points" but to gain useful information (some would be "pure" science, clearly).

So you get points for getting atmospheric data, but doing the right kind and amount of such science would turn on atmospheric trajectory prediction, for example. So a few probes to Duna, and then you can actually plan a landing spot, because the trajectory future position will include drag.  There are all kinds of places where science could be more realistically useful instead of just as points to unlock tech. Munar rocks should not help you develop a new upper stage engine. Tests of precursor engines on orbit might help. Long duration space stations with labs? That will improve crew capsules because of kerbal factors science. 

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2 hours ago, tater said:

So you get points for getting atmospheric data, but doing the right kind and amount of such science would turn on atmospheric trajectory prediction, for example. So a few probes to Duna, and then you can actually plan a landing spot, because the trajectory future position will include drag.  There are all kinds of places where science could be more realistically useful instead of just as points to unlock tech. Munar rocks should not help you develop a new upper stage engine. Tests of precursor engines on orbit might help. Long duration space stations with labs? That will improve crew capsules because of kerbal factors science. 

In the techtree there is usually a "Requires any" of the previous nodes to unlock...and some of them have a "requires all" of their previous connected nodes to unlock. Imagine needing some previous node AND a Mun surface sample to unlock.

They need to makes sense somehow at least: Why would Eelo dust help you make Ion engine? No it doesn't, but the pursuit to get to Eelo led to these technologies.

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10 hours ago, tater said:

Hence my harping for a true "explore" mode with a semi-randomized solar system (rational positions for different types of worlds, clearly no ice giants at a Mercury type orbit, etc). Then I'd have science actually useful. You'd do science not just for "points" but to gain useful information (some would be "pure" science, clearly).

 

I would really like to have this in KSP. Just starting a new game with a procedural Kerbol system.
It will make the game so much more interesting while playing career mode.

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7 hours ago, Blaarkies said:

In the techtree there is usually a "Requires any" of the previous nodes to unlock...and some of them have a "requires all" of their previous connected nodes to unlock. Imagine needing some previous node AND a Mun surface sample to unlock.

They need to makes sense somehow at least: Why would Eelo dust help you make Ion engine? No it doesn't, but the pursuit to get to Eelo led to these technologies.

I'd make them more realistic, but something similar. Perhaps to develop better landing legs you need to run a test on the smallest leg on the Mun? (make sure it's not deep dust (as they worried about on the Moon).

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@Pthigrivi: Well, i think a program-based game-progression model would be exactly that easy to understand, intuitive middle-ground. Career starts off with a couple of programs avaiable, which would pretty much encompass all you could achieve at the beginning anyways, by having multiple starting missions for each program offered. You simply pick the general direction (=program) you want to go and go. You´d not even have to specify which mission you are aiming for - just the program. The first couple of missions in each program would probably resemble what are now milestones, the later be more like what are now contracts. For each mission completed you get a fixed amount of REP, according to its tier within the program, that does not decay (two ways of losing REP: Dead kerbals and suspending a program, the later you can resume for no REP-cost, so you do not end up trapped because of that). More advanced programs may be listed early on, but only get unlocked if certain conditions are met, one of which could be a REP-threshold. For more details read my previous posts.

I think this is pretty straight forward, without being too linear and would nicely deliver the feeling of progression, while at the same time provide a good basis for balancing and tutoring and also be in compliance with general video-game experience. It would be about as linear and complicated as your standard open-world RPG, giving about the same feeling of progression. Like, look at the different programs as analogies to, say, the factions in Fallout: New Vegas, for example. If you choose to help one of them (which you dont have to), they will offer you quests, in a certain sequence (but sometimes multiple at once). If you have already completed one of them, before it gets even offered to you, that´s fine too. Feel sick and tired of this one faction? Well, go somewhere else and help another for a while... and the overall game-progression depends on who you helped to what extent. And then there are these completely unrelated sidequests, which would be the equivalent of the occassional contract you pick outside of programs, just to get some extra-funds. And of course, you can still just goof around, trying to see if you can go ´there´ (wherever) just for the lulz or out of curiousity.

EDIT: I am thinking of like 1-3 missions for each tier of each program and each program having like 10 tiers. With like 10 programs around, that would total to something like 200 ´quests´ and about 1,000 REP to collect, so each point of REP would roughly resemble 0.1% towards game-completion. And there is still independent contracts, tourism and mining for you to do outside of the programs, plus any personal goals you may have in mind.

EDIT2: Science would be the analogy to (craftable) loot, the science lab would be your workbench, transforming the loot into something useful, science instruments would be your backpack (or your "vest with [x] pockets")...

Edited by Mr. Scruffy
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@Pthigrivi The tree is just a dumb limitation of the career mode. There's no balance there, it's simply LIMITING! I'm never going to change my opinion on that. Missons should be the ones pushing your progression, not the tree. The researched parts should be simply an extra thing. Yes, some engines are more futuristic than others, but that doesn't mean we should be limited to unlocking ones that we are not going to use anyway. The tree is linear. Independent groups of parts wouldn't. Add that to missions that you can choose the theme yourself and then you get true freedom of career mode.

I never said the missions should be scripted and tried to be as explicit on this as possible, but anyway here it goes again:

1. Programs in the Admin Building (YOU choose what kinds of missions you want to do, not some random lottery system from the current stock game)
2. They have their own tabs in the Mission Control Bulding
3. Each tab has at least 5 (preferably as many as possible) missions based around the main goal of the program.

R&D:
1. Parts are grouped depending on what their purpose is/what they are made of (wings with wings, girders with girders, wheels with wheels, etc.)
2. You need to provide money and experiments' data to research them
3. You have to test engines if you want to own them (by completing test missions): rocket engines get 1 static test, airbreathing engines get 2: static and in-flight and the ion engine gets to pass one vacuum test.

Only some of those nodes would be connected. Like tank sizes, for example (tiny -> small-> medium -> large)

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Obviously we are not agreeing to each other fully on the mission/program part, Veeltch. But that´s fine. We are close enough to each other, i guess.

As for the parts... I sort of agree with here, too, to the same extent as for programs (so like 80%), but on 3) i balk a bit: I seriously do not want to do static tests. That would be just added tedium. Testing should be part of the R&D-process. Maybe you could choose to ´over-research´ some things, at disproportional cost (in time & money), to add another % of performance here and there. But please dont make me do obligatory manual testruns on engines! That´d be like Windows acting AS IF it was ready after boot-up (and if you ever had a slow WIN-PC, you should know, how annoying that is). When i see this pop-up telling me ´Engine XY research completed´ i want to be like ´yay - now i can finally build the vessel for mission Z´, insetad of ´Ugh! Another test-run pending - better be done with that: *clickclick-clickidiclick-*roar*-*bling*-click* - Now where was I?´.

But i want to get back on programs for a bit more: What i proposed above would also make the game start simple and widen the player´s possibilities has he/she collects REP. You´d start out in a rather tight alley, with a lot of guidance, but as you go, the game would branch out with the possible goals it presents to you.

Say, once you have collected 5 REP you can initiate the mun and minmus programs. 5 REP would require you to complete either 2 tier2 missions + 2 tier1 mission (since you cannot complete 2 tier2 missions before having completed their respective tier1 missions, even though it may all happen in the same launch), or 1xt3, 1xt2 and 1xt1 - so even before you get this far, the question may be: specialization or broad approach - do i follow both branches to tier2, or pick one and stick to it until i reach tier3. And when you did reach those 5 (actually 6, in both cases) REP the questions becomes: Do i initiate the mun or the minmus program first? Now, or do i proceed along the Kerbin program a bit further, first? (remember: once initiated, a clock begins to tick on any program´s financial rewards) Do i suspend the Kerbin program while i am doing the mun/minmus one (or both in parallel?)? And then, before any of your current programs hits tier10, you reach the threshold for the Duna and Eve programs, and the options just become more and more...

I think a rather ´flat´ tech-tree, with a broad root, would suit this nicely. It´d be more about the time some items take to be researched individually, than beelining for them up a tree. "With my tier1 R&D building only able to research at 1Sci/d, when fully staffed, do i really want to start on that 1000 SCI project first or should i maybe stick to the cheaper ones first?"

Edited by Mr. Scruffy
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A more open tree with 1 part per node might make more sense, then you pick what you want to work on.

Programs are groups of missions with an overarching goal. There could be many to chose from, but there are a finite number, each of which might have a manned, unmanned, or "both" toggle.:

Explore body (pull down of worlds)

Tourism (hauling non-astronauts to space)

Commercial launches (haul things to space for others---ideally the cargo would be supplied as a subassembly, and is not under control of the player after completion)

Construction/ISRU (these could be commercial, or owned by KSC).

There are then finite possible missions within those programs:

Crew/No Crew

Body (pick a world as a pull-down)

Interaction (flyby, orbit, landing)

Purpose (science, base/station construction, ISRU, commercial, tourism)

Return? (return to Kerbin or not)

That is it. Every possible mission can be constructed with pull-downs.

What the game could add, possibly "randomly" are required sub goals within those missions. 

 

So we accept Explore the Mun (EtM) with both probes and Kerbals.

We can then create missions (perhaps there is a structure that requires a certain number of missions that tick certain science/achievement requirements to have the Program succeed). EtM might require at least 1 munar orbital survey mission be completed, then it might require landing on the Mun in at least X biomes, and as it was picked as crewed, it might require both astronaut return to Kerbin, and sample return from each landing (I think generally many types of data should transmit at 100%, but samples should transmit at 0%, requiring sample return (add a probe part for this as well).

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Well, then this about the themes of the programs, then. I previously refered to them as body-themed, but they could also be purposed themed, i guess. That would shift some of their properties down to the missions, though (like the tick-down, cause a toursim mission to kerbin sub-orbital is quicker to complete than one to Laythe and back). But i do think, that they should be predefined. That mission generator is a) hard to code and balance and b) something that i presume not all that many players would want to toy with. It´s a very complex concept, hard to get right on both ends, the devs´ and the players´. It also offers no guidance to new players.

One has to keep in mind that the devs opted for ´sharable player experience´. If that wasnt so, my opinions on some things would be quite different. But since that foundation has been laid out, it should be followed suit in the design of the rest of the game.

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Well, i am not saying i was enthusiastic about that decision either, but alas...

I would very much like to see procedural worlds and all that Jazz, i just dont think it is ever going to happen in stock KSP. You have great novel ideas and i love most of them, but they´d be a huge risk for the devs to take, while scripted programs would be based on tried, established-in-the-industry concepts, that offer the prospect of $ at limited risk, by getting more players to play the game, instead of catering to the ´freakish stuff´ already convinced fanboys like us may want. ;D

EDIT: To me, it is all about time (see sig). I want it to play a significant role in KSP´s career mode. That´s all. I want that to be achieved with the simplest tools possible, that come with the least amount of confusion for new players, reasons to get frustrated, addition of new mechanics or general revolution possible. At this point i am even dropping out of the construction-time and life-support camp (for now, at least), because i think with the changes and additions mentioned above, those could be reasonably abstracted away for the sake of a smoother gameflow, since R&D times, wages and depleting program-rewards have them covered. If it´s time we are aiming for, there is no need to shoot at it from like a dozen directions at once.

EDIT2: That´s also, why i´d prefer the programs to be body based (and generally focused on exploration, with all the rest being seperate from the programs): 1. It would feature less individual properties (tick-times for entire programs), making it simpler, less error prone on both ends, 2. It´d be more akin to that RPG-experience, where, by-and-large, you go from town to town completing one after the other, more or less (of course with the occassional return). I think it´s more intuitive, offers more affordance.

Mining & tourism i just see as something that you´d run on your own accord. Mining obviously requires the equipment and once you have it, you can run mining operations. See to it that they turn out profitable (or useful). No program required. Toursim? Well, depending on your REP (3rd way of destroying REP: killing tourists) tourists line up - the further you take them (and back), the more you can cash on them. No program for that, either. (Thats not to say, that the body-themed programs couldnt contain mining/tourism missions/branches here and there)

Then there would be contracts like we have them now (minus what is covered by the programs). Tourism & mining contracts would be more of the kind where you set up infrastructure for someone else, instead of doing the actual business of ferrying ore or tourists (those would only occur rarely if you have already had one of those infra-setup-missions first).

And finally, and this is something i would really love to see, there is this special program, that doesnt offer any rewards at all really, game-currency-wise, but guides you to explore some mystery around the anamolies, and which gets triggered after you have found your first.

EDIT3 (sorry): You know what? Actually, the body themed programs should have at least tourism branches (starting maybe around tier 6) for bodies, where it makes sense, focusing on building destinations (accomodation) - and tourists would only want to go to those. Then you´d get contract-offering for those destinations and each destination (or rather their capacity as you´d expand each ´hotel´ over tiers 7, 8, 9 and 10 of each respective program-branch, if you so chose) would increase the number of such contracts showing up.

Edited by Mr. Scruffy
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I usually add that I'm fine with "random" contracts added. For any of the science, and many of the base/station contracts, there should be a difference between internal contracts (your staff suggesting landing sites, etc) and 3d party contracts. Anything launched as a "contract" should cease to belong to the player once it is completed.

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The thing is I don't think we disagree that much. Really the only difference between what you suggested and what I suggested is the UI, and that you prefer the term "programs" to "contracts". In my version you select your body with a map instead of drop downs. Because the only difference between "landed" and "plant flag" is that planting a flag requires having a kerbal on board you don't actually have to stipulate "crewed" or not. IRSU is just a strategy that's available to you, there's no need to tell the game that either, you just design your mission that way. If you like building stations or doing tourism contracts or launching satellites you just select the strategies for those contract types at the admin building and more contracts of those types will pop up and you can choose to dovetail them or not. Contracts do have their purpose, after all, to offer up mission ideas that a player may not have thought of themselves. Im okay with some curveball directions. The only issue is when the limited slot of choices restrains a player from trekking out where they'd like to go.

Edited by Pthigrivi
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On 4/29/2016 at 7:23 AM, Rombrecht said:

Greetings fellow space nerds!

Since early alpha I've been an enthusiastic player of KSP. The game has thought me alot about the mechanics of spaceflight and motivated me to study the history of spaceflight.

When career mode was added, at first I was quite exited about the prospect of playing the game like a real space program manager. However, I find myself exclusively playing sandbox mode these days again because I keep getting frustrated with the way career mode functions in KSP.

Being the stickler for historical accuracy and realism that I am, I always found it rather odd that the KSP career begins with a manned mission. unmanned probes only come into the game after some research. While in reality of course, every destination in space has always first been visited by unmanned robotic probes, paving the way for manned exploration.

Also, the fact that one needs to gather "science" by measuring the properties of the different regions of space and celestial bodies in order to develop rocket parts seems a bit absurt. One does not learn about the mechanics of liquid rocket engine turbo pumps by studying the craters of the moon. In the real world, knowledge about rocketry is gained by spending money on testing parts on the ground, and by flying (and occasionally blowing up) equipment.

So, I've been finding myself RP-ing a career in sandbox mode. Would it not however be swell if we could imagine a more realistic career progression and mechanic then is currently implemented in the game? Mods like Better then starting manned partially tackle the issue, but technological progression is still based on "science" gained form studying space in stead of spending money on R&D.

And yes, I know this is a game about little green men riding insane rockets into space, and less about an accurate representation of historical spaceflight. But hey, speculating about the mechanics of a game never hurts. What are everyone's thoughts?

 

Try realism overhaul with RP-0

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On 5/27/2016 at 6:14 PM, Combatsmithen said:

Try realism overhaul with RP-0

For me, Realism Overhaul and RP-0 are too much. Realism Overhaul just makes your rockets behave like those in real life, while KSP allows you to use sandbox to build whatever crazy contraptions. That's one of the main reasons I love KSP so much. You have rocket science, but a cartoony style that makes it easy to understand. KSP career is supposed to take that and make it into a game about exploration, which it fails to do. 

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I was thinking about the program based progression model a bit more and found a possible exploit stemming from the combination of suspendability, program-based tick-down of rewards over time, and completing missions before you get them: If there is nothing to prevent this, it would be prudent for a player, who already knows what missions are contained in each program, to finish as many as he/she can before even initiating the program, as to reap the full rewards for them.

To prevent this, this ´launch a new vessel´-condition (known from various existing contracts) should apply, after you have (re-)initiated a program - so that you do not launch your Jool-exploration flotilla, wait until it arrives, and THEN initiate the Jool-program. So, in effect, you can only skip ahead missions on active programs. If you launch a vessel to Moho and do not have the Moho-program active, none of your achievements there will count. It could turn out to be a bit frustrating sometimes and is also sort of illogical, i admit, but i dont see a better way to prevent this possible exploit, yet.

Edited by Mr. Scruffy
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17 hours ago, Mr. Scruffy said:

I was thinking about the program based progression model a bit more and found a possible exploit stemming from the combination of suspendability, program-based tick-down of rewards over time, and completing missions before you get them: If there is nothing to prevent this, it would be prudent for a player, who already knows what missions are contained in each program, to finish as many as he/she can before even initiating the program, as to reap the full rewards for them.

To prevent this, this ´launch a new vessel´-condition (known from various existing contracts) should apply, after you have (re-)initiated a program - so that you do not launch your Jool-exploration flotilla, wait until it arrives, and THEN initiate the Jool-program. So, in effect, you can only skip ahead missions on active programs. If you launch a vessel to Moho and do not have the Moho-program active, none of your achievements there will count. It could turn out to be a bit frustrating sometimes and is also sort of illogical, i admit, but i dont see a better way to prevent this possible exploit, yet.

Funds.

It would be hard to balance, but if the career is limited to a certain amount of money the program would permanently rise the income each month/year/whatever.

So for example: you get 11,000 funds per month, which is just enough for any LKO operations. It's the max amount you can hold in your pocket, so it's unable to stack over a few months. Then once the program gets activated you get to hold sth like 50,000 funds per month, which is enough for a Jool mission. Once the mission is launched (the game recognises it as the Jool vessel because it has an experiment instrumentation combo specified as needed in this mission/program) it goes back to 11,000.

I think the funds cap was orignally proposed by regex. The values are a rough approximation, so don't crucify me for not actually calculating all this stuff right, ok?

Edited by Veeltch
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Well, yeah, capped cash could work, too. Say, the varaible holding your cash is limited to 6 digits (999,999). But then, there are other things to consider: For example, expanding facilities should never (difficulty levels!) get close to that for any building and any tier. Otherwise it becomes a game-breaker (imagine you started a career-game, played for double-digit hours, only to find out, that expanding this one facility to tier 3 takes 1.2M - a sum the game does not allow you to accumulate).

A ´funds´ (income based on time) mechanic is problematic, as has been established in these discussions, because of the vastly varying amounts of time it takes to accomplish things during the various stages of the game. In a way KSP is like Civilization reversed: You start with 1-year "turns" (short missions) and end up with 50-year "turns" (Jool and beyond). Also, regulararily re-occuring funding would not incentivize you to speed things up, would it?

And you´d have to have the game "recognize a mission´s goal" - that´s something i´d explicitely want to avoid: It´s entirely possible that you have two programs being active, both of which contain missions requiring the same scientific equipment - maybe you even want to do a cross-program launch, carrying said equipment to, say, the Mun first and then bring it to, say, Duna, with just one launch, checking off the according missions of both programs in one whoop, which is sort of exactly the kind of clever mission planing i´d like to see advanced players enabled to implement. The system should guide new players without limiting advanced ones too much. I´d like to imagine, that the first time you realize you can do this, and pull it off, you´d feel very smug (satisfied) for it.

But (i dont know if i mentioned it here, or in another thread) players should be able to assign missions to launches. Not for any functional reasons, but simply for some auto-naming mechanic naming the launch. In the aforementioned example, you could assign both missions to the launch and it would be named something like ´Mun Duna Science Mission´, or something a bit better sounding. You get the idea. This would, however, not limit the reapable rewards to the assigned missions - it´s just a naming tool for your individual rocket. Of course its use should be optional and auto-generated names editable.

Edited by Mr. Scruffy
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1 hour ago, Mr. Scruffy said:

Well, yeah, capped cash could work, too. Say, the varaible holding your cash is limited to 6 digits (999,999). But then, there are other things to consider: For example, expanding facilities should never (difficulty levels!) get close to that for any building and any tier. Otherwise it becomes a game-breaker (imagine you started a career-game, played for double-digit hours, only to find out, that expanding this one facility to tier 3 takes 1.2M - a sum the game does not allow you to accumulate).

The buildings could be upgraded depending on what tech the player unlocked. The R&D would automatically expand as the needs for new and better tech arise. No funds needed to expand it (assuming there's some sort of government funding the program).

Or certain (newly) unlocked programs could boost the expansion of KSC too. So for example: a simple Jet Flight Research Program is available at tier 1 SPH. Once it's completed a Supersonic Flight Research Program becomes available and SPH becomes the tier 2 SPH. Once that's done you pick the SSTO Research Program and the SPH hits the final tier 3 form.

 

1 hour ago, Mr. Scruffy said:

And you´d have to have the game "recognize a mission´s goal" - that´s something i´d explicitely want to avoid: It´s entirely possible that you have two programs being active, both of which contain missions requiring the same scientific equipment - maybe you even want to do a cross-program launch, carrying said equipment to, say, the Mun first and then bring it to, say, Duna, with just one launch, checking off the according missions of both programs in one whoop, which is sort of exactly the kind of clever mission planing i´d like to see advanced players enabled to implement. The system should guide new players without limiting advanced ones too much. I´d like to imagine, that the first time you realize you can do this, and pull it off, you´d feel very smug (satisfied) for it.

But (i dont know if i mentioned it here, or in another thread) players should be able to assign missions to launches. Not for any functional reasons, but simply for some auto-naming mechanic naming the launch. In the aforementioned example, you could assign both missions to the launch and it would be named something like ´Mun Duna Science Mission´, or something a bit better sounding. You get the idea. This would, however, not limit the reapable rewards to the assigned missions - it´s just a naming tool for your individual rocket. Of course its use should be optional and auto-generated names editable.

I agree. Simply giving some sort of 'tags' to vessels could work quite well too. On the other hand, aren't slingshots a real thing? The Rosetta mission didn't directly go for the 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko asteroid. It used Mars to slingshot itself (and maybe did some science there? it certinly would if Mars didn't already have so many probes orbiting it).

Edited by Veeltch
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1) Yeah, it could work this way, but i dunno. I think it´s okay to have the building-tiers cost money. I was just pointing out, that if cash-reserves were to be limited, the costs for expanding facilities may not be too high. Which is fine - i dont like these massive paywalls anyways.

2) Exactly. If you wanted to go to 67P to complete a mission of some program there and thought to yourself ´well, i could use Mars to slingshot and complete the Mars-fly-by mission of the Mars-program while i am at it´, but the game decides on launch (based on whatever) that this a 67P program-mission exclusively, that good idea of yours at this point becomes moot (except for collecting science and the actual slingshot).

I think it´s preferable to just be required to have the 67P and Mars programs (resp.) active before launch in order to be able to chekov (;P) missions in both programs. It´d be less kirky and right on spock (okay, i´ll stop this, here and now ;P).

Edited by Mr. Scruffy
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The slingshot certainly has some interesting possibilities for mission requirements. Right now it would be the sort of "grand tour" stuff we have (hit the SoI of X worlds)---those are missions I never do. A more vague requirement that suggests visiting Jool after entering the SoI of 2 other worlds would be kind of interesting. If the game had a built in transfer window planner, perhaps it could look for gravity assist geometries.

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Okay so the things that could take time would be:

- Rocket/Plane construction (about as many as missions)
- Building upgrades (9 buildings x3 tiers)
- Research nodes (between 60 and 227 depending how you group them)
- New recruit training?

Waiting for these things would need to be balanced with mission durations. These are the rough numbers including waiting for return windows but not including the maximum wait for outbound transfer windows. You would have to account for that because it wouldn't really be fair to penalize players for missing a deadline because the transfer window was years away.

Mun - One way: 1.25d, Round Trip: 2.5d
Minmus - One way: 9.25d, Round Trip:18.5d
Asteroid Missions - Round Trip, 25d - 215d
Moho - One way: 110d, Round trip: 310d
Eve - One way: 165d, Round trip: 890d
Duna - One way: 300d, Round trip: 1170d
Dres - One way: 555d, Round trip: 1290d
Jool - One way: 1050d, Round trip: 2530d
Eeloo - One way: 1560d, Round trip: 3320dt

I tend to think more than 3 like trips to the same body gets into grind territory. That’s not to say you couldn’t send a dozen missions to the Mun or Duna over the course of a save if you wanted to, but the game shouldn’t really expect you to in order to progress. I also tend to think you should be able to get halfway through the tech tree in Kerbin SOI with a bit of work, at least to nukes before heading interplanetary. It would also be nice if you could complete the the tech tree before mounting big crewed Jool missions. Moho windows are about every 230 days, with Dres, Eve, Jool and Eeloo ranging from 600 to 400 days. Duna windows unfortunately are 2 years apart, which means if you send a probe first you’ve got quite a while to kill before your next window if you want to go manned, which is usually your first logical interplanetary mission.

 

What this suggests to me is if the research upgrades are to remain relevant there should be a huge difference in research times between early game parts and late game parts, from a couple of weeks early on to as much as years later. I don't know if you want to cap the number of concurrent research projects, but later on it should be as many as a dozen. It also means there will be times later in the game when you’ve sent multiple probes to each planet and may need to time-warp for over a year to get to a sensible launch window for manned missions. This could get really tricky if you actually want people to run missions while they wait for upgrades and research rather than just time-warping through it. You also can’t just schedule penalties annually as they won’t scale from the early game to the late game. They really need to be tied to mission durations, probably in the form of deadline hits to reputation. Increasing caps on total funds keeps you from having infinite money at any one time, but you can still abuse it by launching huge numbers of modules. It also seems a bit restrictive for players who might want to strategically save up for a particularly expensive mission. Better I think would be limiting funding duration for each mission so players could take risks and increase their total so long as they could come through in the end.


If this was the case, if deadlines were intelligently calibrated to factor for transfer windows and funding durations were simply capped you wouldn’t actually need to flag vessels. You could name them whatever you liked and reuse modules and visit multiple bodies as you pleased so long as the objective was satisfied before the deadline.

 

All of this could add a nice sense of pace to the game and force players to think carefully about time and scheduling more broadly. Life support would only reinforce this, adding that extra bit of pressure to do things efficiently. Still, its a lot to juggle and would put big restrictions on some playstyles so any time-based system really should be toggleable.

Edited by Pthigrivi
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@Pthigrivi yeah, deadlines being tied to the closest window could also work nice, but they would need to be balanced, unlike it is now. I often find myself accepting contracts that last for 60 years, take the money and never really complete them.

On the other hand "balanced" deadlines could also cause some problems.

So let's say you want to do a bunch of slingshots first (Kerbin -> Eve -> Kerbin -> Jool) before you get to Jool. If the deadline is balanced for a direct transfer time (Kerbin -> Jool) there's a high chance you might not make it there in time.

Such system (which is just a balanced version of what we have now) would harm the players that like to play a bit slower than others, or simply didn't research needed tech in time for the closest launch window.

I think the best way to do this would be to set a deadline for a launch of a [Jool] flagged vessel. Once it's launched there are no deadlines and the only objective of the contract is to do science once you get to your destination. That way the only thing you would have to do before the launch would be the tech research, which would also be easier to balance: if there are two parts/groups of parts (one takes 15 days and the other 20 to research) needed for a mission/program you add the time needed to research both (35 days) and set the deadline for the launch somewhere around that.

Now you may say: But what about the completion? What if players just launch vessels and never go to Jool/other body specified in the program?

My answer: If you won't go there then you won't complete the program, which means you won't unlock another one. Better go there and do that science or you won't advance anywhere.

EDIT: oh, and by the way: Have you ever played with KAC @Pthigrivi? Launch windows happen all the time, so waiting for another one is not really a problem.

Edited by Veeltch
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Ahem - what was wrong with program rewards decaying once the program is active? Why are we starting over with this discussion?

Hard deadlines are either too easy and offer too little incentive for the player to consider time, or, in case of actual failure, frustrating AF. It´s a punishing game-mechanic ; something that should be avoided. Veeltch pointed out the balancing issue with hard caps, and how they are hindering creative gameplay.

Pthigrivi asked wether to cap the number of techs to be researched at any one time. Answer: Yes, to exactly one, cause any higher number makes no sense. Imagine 3 "nodes" you want, each costing 20 SCI, and you are able to research 1 Sci/d. So it would take 60 days to research them all. If you´d do them in parallel, you´d get all 3 on day 60. If you do it sequentially, you get node A on day 20, node B on day 40 and C on 60, which only offers advantages and has no drawbacks - so why would you want to research in parallel, ever?

The late game techs would of course take much longer to research than the early ones. In my mind, i treat 1 Sci = 1 day and go from there. Early game techs are like what? 5 Sci? Late game´s are a thousand.

Things that should take time? R&D. Done. Why would you need more?  Construction time is hard to balance, quite complex and a high-odds candidate of frustration. It offers no meaningful choices, imho. All it will do for the player is a lot of thumb twiddling and launch-window missing. Let me ask you this: If you´d build a Space Shuttle-alike, you know, a reuseable vessel, how´d you feel about having to wait for a new one to be constructed before every launch? Yeah, perhaps one could device some super-complex internal mechanic to account for this... but why and how likely is it to happen, really?

The other two (facility-upgrade and training) are less problematic and could be time-relevant.

WIth programs featuring diminshing rewards the longer they are active, you dont face hard caps, you are not restricted, but incentivized (which is always better), to do things effeciently with a focus on whatever is more valuable to you in your current game at the time (time, money, sci or rep) without even having something like life support (which is another potentially very punishing mechanic).

Also i hear the word ´grind´? That´s a function of options not of the number of times you need to go somewhere. After ~3 missions, the next place should open up, maybe, to provide another option, but the old one should not be automatically ´completed´ just because of that. That´s why i suggested 10 tiers with a branching out tree for each program. To only have 3 missions for each planet would be waste, imho. That would be like having a swimming pool and only bathe your feet in it. I want you to: 1. Walk around it, to check its size, 2. dip your toes in it to check temperature and acidity, 3. Grab that life-saving ring and wade in to hip-depth, 4. Swim a lane, 5. Dive to 1m below surface, 6. Dive for 30 seconds, 7. Build a slide and use it, 8. build a 3m tower and jump from it, 9... ahh, you get the point, with some branches going of at certain points (e.g. a ´dive-branch´, a ´slide-branch´...).

EDIT: I´ll allow myself to state some basic principles which should be followed, not only when it comes to this, but in game-design in general, in the hope, that we can all agree to these and tailor our suggestions accordingly:

1. Try to avoid punishing players - instead try to reward them. Work with incentives instead of deadlines, for example. Avoid measuring success in booleans (0/1 - yes/no) but aim for a continuum (possibly in more than one dimension, even), instead. Work with soft-caps where you can, avoid hard-caps, where they are not needed.*

2. Guide new players, but try to avoid restricting experienced ones as much as you can while doing so. Players become more experienced, while they are playing ; so in early game guidance is the focus, with freedom gradually taking over, as the game progresses.

3. KISS ("keep it simple, stupid"): Try to achieve the experience you are aiming for with the least mechanics possible. Implemented mechanics should be easy to understand, consistant throughout the game and intuitive from the get-go. The information needed for the player to actually play with them should be easily avaiable to him/her. 

4. Do not add elements for their own sake, but instead ask yourself, what they would add to the game-experience as a whole. Realism is only one aspect and not something that forces elements to be part of the game, per se. If a realistic element adds tedium, confusion and/or frustration, it has to offer a lot more more than just reaslism on the other side of the coin, in order for its implementation to be a good idea, still. Chances are, it´s not, in many cases. 

*The reason soft-caps are rarely implemented in games is because of AIs usually having issues dealing with them - but KSP has no AI. They offer the possibilty of "i did it" or "that´s good enough" becoming "i did it well (=efficient)" and "i could do better than this", which is what experienced players are looking for and becomes ever more interesting as you crank up the difficulty.

 

EDIT2 - PS: If you give me points for my posts, i assume, you are actually agreeing to what i wrote to a high degree - please do NOT give me points, just for participating in the debate. I am not writing here for points or altruistic reasons, but because i want to influence the developement of the game.

Edited by Mr. Scruffy
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There is in this case a problem with the 'soft cap': time warp. There are many times, waiting for transfer windows for example, when you need to time warp. If rewards decay linearly players pay for every moment of that. It is still a penalty, and its one the player has no ability to avoid. If instead you use deadlines the player has a broad grace period in which to operate before bad things happen. It may not appear so, but this is actually a softer consequence, and one thats much easier for players to predict and negotiate.

As far as researching one at a time or concurrently you're probably right so long as you can queue up a whole bunch at once. Im a little worried in practice it could cause bottle-necks but maybe whether you're queuing or running a bunch simultaneously doesn't matter. 

6 hours ago, Veeltch said:

I think the best way to do this would be to set a deadline for a launch of a [Jool] flagged vessel. Once it's launched there are no deadlines and the only objective of the contract is to do science once you get to your destination. That way the only thing you would have to do before the launch would be the tech research, which would also be easier to balance: if there are two parts/groups of parts (one takes 15 days and the other 20 to research) needed for a mission/program you add the time needed to research both (35 days) and set the deadline for the launch somewhere around that.

Yeaaah this is a good point about complex slingshot missions, and its probably part of the reason stock deadlines are so crazy forgiving. So you're saying you could flag one vessel for multiple missions? I know you're not unlocking missions linearly, but they must be somewhat linear, right? Like say when you start you only have 'flying planes' and 'get to orbit' as your mission options. Complete one or both and Mun and Minmus unlock, complete one or both of those and Asteroids, Duna, and Eve open up. At this stage could you put a probe in orbit, flag it for anything incomplete and use all that money to just do one mission? Like if having something flagged in orbit indefinitely postpones deadlines why wouldn't you always have a probe in orbit flagged for every available mission so you could get as much money as possible and never worry about deadlines?

 

6 hours ago, Veeltch said:

@PthigriviEDIT: oh, and by the way: Have you ever played with KAC @Pthigrivi? Launch windows happen all the time, so waiting for another one is not really a problem.

I have and its true windows in general open up all the time, but ideal windows for specific planets can take quite a while. Like say a player has just started doing interplanetary missions. They may have the tech development for probes but can't really afford to mount a full manned Eve or Laythe mission. So they send 3 probes to Moho, three probes to Eve, Jool, etc, do an asteroid mission, but that stupid Duna window, the one they really want to do, is still more than a year away. I still feel like maybe the most important thing in all this is to give payers choice over where to go and how to go there, and if a player just wants to do a damned Duna mission but instead is being required by the penalties and incentives of the game to do lots and lots of other things while they wait we might end up back where we started.

Edited by Pthigrivi
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