Stock planet expansion roadmap

[A_Burnt_Rodent]

3 hours ago, regex said:

More places to go sounds fantastic, it's tangible content in a game about space exploration.  Randomly and procedurally generating a solar system would be great as well.

This.  The only other game I've spent anywhere near as much time with is Minecraft and the most fun with that game is starting a new world and exploring. 

[klgraham1013]

8 hours ago, regex said:

snip

You live in America.  Go visit the grand canyon.  How about Devil's Tower?  Go explore a cave.  If you don't enjoy these activities, that's cool, but adding a little spice to planet's would actually give a reason to explore for those who enjoy that sort of thing.  Even if the scenic vista is only digital.

[regex]

5 minutes ago, klgraham1013 said:

You live in America.  Go visit Canada.  How about Mexico?  Go explore Europe.  If you don't enjoy these activities, that's cool, but adding more places to go would actually give a reason to explore for those who enjoy that sort of thing.  Even if the scenic vista isn't as high-res as it could be.

There, I fixed it to support my argument.  +1 internets to you, sir!

[klgraham1013]

14 minutes ago, regex said:

There, I fixed it to support my argument.  +1 internets to you, sir!

Why do you hate America?  There's cool stuff here too!

[Alshain]

@regex @klgraham1013

I mean, really both of you make good arguments.  I'd like some new places around Kerbin to explore with atmospheric planes, but I'd also love some new planets.  Both KerbinSide and Outer Planets Mod have proven that people want both.  Can't we all just get along?

Edited May 10, 2016 by Alshain

[Speeding Mullet]

12 minutes ago, Alshain said:

I mean, really both of you make good arguments

Agreed.  The two ideas don't have to be mutually exclusive.  I'd love to see a huge overhaul of the existing planets and moons as part of a upgrade package adding more places to visit.  Wouldn't it be nice to get new places to visit that are also worth visiting.

SM

[regex]

19 minutes ago, Alshain said:

Both KerbinSide and Outer Planets Mod have proven that people want both.  Can't we all just get along?

vOv

People keep telling me Squad should fix what they have first, I really don't have a problem with polish one way or the other but we really do need a few more places to go because beautiful stale places are still stale places.

[Alshain]

8 minutes ago, regex said:

vOv

People keep telling me Squad should fix what they have first, I really don't have a problem with polish one way or the other but we really do need a few more places to go because beautiful stale places are still stale places.

They are stale to you and I because we bought into early access.  Tons of people only bought the game after it was 'released'.  We really just got biomes on all the planets, I know that feels like forever ago because changing game engines took a year, but it was only 2 major versions ago.  I'm not saying more planets wouldn't be nice, but you do have to remember the early access players are probably a fraction of the total playerbase now.

Edited May 10, 2016 by Alshain

[OhioBob]

8 hours ago, RandomUser said:

Am I missing something?  Certainly.  Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto.  Now, am I saying the game needs to have some massive expansion that adds all these planets?  No, not necessarily (Despite how amazing that would be), what I am saying is that their needs to be something way farther out than Eeloo, for which what comes to mind is Neptune or Pluto, maybe Saturn, just for the rings. 

You can always add Outer Planets Mod.

[smjjames]

13 hours ago, Brainlord Mesomorph said:

But I think an accurate model of Saturn's Rings is well beyond our patched conic system. The Saturn System  alone would add an almost infinite number of planetary objects.

A more fulsome asteroid belt though... only a few hundred.

Uh, I've seen some screenshots of Kopernicus planets with rings and I think RSS's Saturn has rings. So, it can just be something as simple as a colliderless texture.

[r4pt0r]

Everyone here seems to either say more stuff, or better current stuff, and if squad listens to either or both then most will be happy campers.

 

My question is can they move eeloo to be a moon of a gp2, in a full release game. Would players be upset if they already had probes on the way somewhere and booted it up to see the map has changed ?Would it be save game friendly?

"This isn't early access anymore, why did you break my save" could be a problem.

[Scotius]

You know what would be awesome? Event\research chains like in "Stellaris".

[severedsolo]

2 hours ago, r4pt0r said:

My question is can they move eeloo to be a moon of a gp2, in a full release game. Would players be upset if they already had probes on the way somewhere and booted it up to see the map has changed ?Would it be save game friendly?

"This isn't early access anymore, why did you break my save" could be a problem.

SQUAD's idea of "not save breaking" seems to be "the save will load", which I'm fine with. Save compatibility should not hold back new content. Read the changelog, take a copy if you really need to get to Eeloo.

There is precedent for this - as an example, the MKI Cockpit overhaul in 1.0.5. I bet those people using 1.0.4 probably couldn't use craft using the old model when they loaded the new save (or it looked weird).

[Draco T stand-up guy]

16 hours ago, Majorjim said:

I would love gas planet 2/with moons and some Kuiper belt type objects too. Waaay out there.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-21/planet-nine-new-giant-planet-may-lurk-beyond-pluto/7103838

[Streetwind]

I don't quite recall who I've heard saying this (I think it might have been Scott Manley?), but apparently there are limits as to what the PQS system (the way planets are built in KSP) can do because it's a 32bit system right now. And that doesn't refer to the memory management side of things, but rather to the coordinate addressing side. The precision with which terrain coordinates can exist is limited, and therefore, terrain cannot be built as intricately as we might like - and planets cannot be as big as we might like, because bigger planets require more intricate terrain, which can't be built.

What I don't know is whether or not the PQS system can use 64bit addresses for terrain detail now in Unity 5.x.

If the answer is no, then there's a limit to how much can be done to "prettify" the stock planets. I mean, I'm sure they are not all riding the limit as hard as they could everywhere, perhaps; but what you won't see is a giant leap forward, with mountain ranges suddenly as vast and detailed as those in modern open-world games. No, the main improvement work would have to be done with textures (benefitting from the 64bit memory pool of Unity 5), lighting, shaders, and terrain scatter. Basically, you'd be giving the planets a new coat of paint, but not rebuilding them.

If the answer is yes, then that would be huge. Squad could probably devote an entire update towards nothing but redoing planet meshes - or spread it out across multiple updates even, with the planets coming first and the moons coming second or something. This is where it really is at - especially since the other improvements mentioned above can of course also be applied in this case.

 

As for the question of what constitutes "new content" for me when planets are concerned? Unique vistas. Things of beauty that I can only see when I go to one specific place. I think that we can all agree that such vistas exist in KSP already, such as Jool hanging low on the horizon on a visit to Tylo or Laythe. There are places on these moons where you land, get out of your craft, pan the camera just right, and sit back with a smile. Things like these are what makes destinations unique, and worth exploring. If you also manage to combine this with a vide variety of physical and orbital characteristics to boot, which influence the gameplay of getting to these places, it's doubly good.

This is something that for example Outer Planets Mod does really well. People often say it is a high quality mod, but they can't really put their finger on why. The above paragraph, that is why. Interesting orbital characteristics (retrograde moons, subsatellites, ring shepherds, sideways tilted equatorial planes, binary systems) and interesting physical characteristics (extreme low gravity worlds, oblong bodies, big differences in the magnitude in terrain between bodies) meet vistas that go well beyond "oh, it's another rocky surface". If you've not yet tried that custom Scatterer config for Tekto that a community member created, you've missed out on a "holy crap" moment for sure.

I'm pretty sure that when people call for new places to explore, this is what they want to see. Yes, even if it's consumable content and you've eventually been there, done that. I can't name a single game that offers infinite replayability without repeating some of its content - even NetHack rolls on the same random tables everytime for its procedural generation, and you'll eventually know all the tricks with which it tries to kill you by heart (which is, in fact, how you manage to win the game). So I don't subscribe to the idea that consumable content is somehow not "good enough".

I would wager that when people call for making the stock planets more interesting, what they really want to say is that there are too many places on them currently where their potential hasn't been fully utilitzed. Too many areas that don't elicit that "wow"-factor that those certain latitudes and longitudes do where you suddenly find yourself with a view that made the whole mission worth it. And too many compromises made in order to get the game to run with 32bit terrain addressing, inside a 32bit memory envelope, on an indie budget. Personally, I think we don't necessarily need new planets - rather, I think that just by doing away with as many of those compromises as possible, and realizing some of the hidden potential in the bodies we already have, will go a long way. Meanwhile, we have a great selection of mods with extra planets for those who feel that itch. OPM isn't even the only good one nowadays.

[Draco T stand-up guy]

16 hours ago, EivlEvo said:

I really enjoy what Squad has done (apart from my Duna base getting shredded in the 1.1 upgrade heh) but from a business standpoint, they could probably pretty easily monetize the expansions now.

Don't think so. There's, IMO, still too much that is simply wrong. Mostly in the KSC itself.

• Mission Control isn't where you go to control the missions you have in progress but where you go to collect contracts.
• Tracking is where you should go to plan your missions. Plan the burns, gravity swings etc. Instead you go there to control your missions.
• Administration is almost on track. You go there to administer programs that are external to the space program itself. IMO, this is also where you should go to pick up your contracts.

 

[Warzouz]

Well my initial question wan't about missing stuff in KSP, but what's in the roadmap. When 1.1 was released there was some kind of live feed from Squad. I looked through it and at one time, I think they was asked for future new planets. Their answer was closer to NO than YES from what I understood.

I would like to have a roadmap, even though any roadmap is not written in stone. Even with a roadmap, your allowed to use side tracks...

Factorio devs publish and maintain a roadmap for years with 1, 2 or 3 major version ahead. there has been some changes, but in the end, the community can see where they go.

The only thing we are nearly sure of is telemetry (mostly because it was delayed from 1.1)

Ah, and a revamp of rocket parts is also on the menu.

[Streetwind]

AFAIK we haven't had a roadmap in the classical sense for KSP for years. Only stuff like one dev or other mentioning that they might at some point want to consider feature X or Y. And of course, whatever they're working on for the next update is made public, through the weekly devnotes.

[Codraroll]

Before I start my wish list, I think I should try to answer the question of the OP:

18 hours ago, Warzouz said:

After looking at some marvellous planet mods, I was wondering : why Squad doesn't have additional planets on its roadmap ?

The impression I've got: Most players rarely if ever go beyond Minmus. The game gets a lot harder and more punishing when you aim for stuff outside Kerbin's SOI. You need more complicated ships, more complicated maneuvers, and the expeditions take an awfully long time to prepare for and execute. In-game, you might have to fast-forward months or even years to hit a suitable launch window. And if you screw up, you might find several hours of work gone down the drain. Packed too little fuel? Watch your ship destined to drift around the Sun forever, or slam hard into the planet as you try to land on it. Or maybe you find you can't get to orbit, much less back to Kerbin, after a successful landing. I thought I'd mastered cismunar travel pretty well before I set off for Duna, but ended up screwing up in a lot of different ways. The lander landed like a brick and took off like a drunk pigeon. The mother ship needed to burn for nearly 20 minutes before achieving orbit around Duna, at which point it had 26 units of fuel left. I had to spend another hours-long play session assembling a rescue craft in Kerbin orbit, fuelling it and sending it off to Duna to pick up the crew and their Science, and get them back to Kerbin. The design decisions you make very early on will come back to bite you several hours into your mission, when you have no way to fix them. That makes the challenge quite daunting for many players. The difficulty of going far away in stock KSP was what made me seek out mods. It may make some people crack their knuckles and whisper "let's go for it", but many others feel the game is asking too much of them and give up. There's something psychological about leaving Kerbin's influence, with no way to know if you'll return.

Besides, the in-game reward for going to the outer planets is slim at best. You can fill the tech tree by biome-hopping on the Mun and Minmus, and while it could be fun to challenge oneself with missions further out, the risk-to-reward ratio is far too high for many people to try. You need a special kind of dedication and desire for challenge to go there.

As such, stock KSP is currently at its best when you go on lightweight expeditions to the Mun or Minmus. Going further is difficult and time-consuming, especially if you base your missions on ships assembled in orbit. For most casual players, Duna is the ultimate frontier, Dres a challenge for the daring, and Jool and beyond simply too much hassle. There's no strict need to add planets beyond Eeloo yet, since any player skilled enough to go there is probably into KSP enough to find a planet mod to play with.

 

What stock KSP needs at the moment isn't more planets. It's incentives to explore those we already have, and stepping stones to go there. I'd love to see an option to add more Space Centers somewhere. If you could, say, establish a proper spaceport on Duna, and use that one as a base for Dres missions, I'd be all over it. There could be a third spaceport on Laythe, unlocked after you brought a certain amount of supplies (or hauled the right parts) there. Add one to Moho too, for good measure. Just make parts and fuel a lot more expensive the further you go from Kerbin, with building upgrades primarily focused on making parts cheaper. If there is a mod for this, I'd like to hear about it.

 

Anyway, perhaps I rather should propose something more lightweight, less invasive and possibly more feasible: Landmarks. We're halfway there already, with the Mun having its canyon and the Mohole on Moho, plus the various Easter Eggs, but it would be awesome if they expanded the concept and gave it more of a focus. A mighty, narrow valley somewhere on the Joolian moons. Proper fjords on Laythe, Eve or even Kerbin. A bright spot on Dres, like the one on Ceres. A non-polar glacier on Duna. A few places, scattered about the Kerbol system, specifically designed to look spectacular, to be a destination for explorers. Each its own biome, with well-paying contracts asking you to go there. The fanbase has many challenges for experienced players, but the game should give some to inexperienced ones too.

I'm not asking anybody to change the game to make hard things "too easy". Just add a few things to make it more convenient.

[LeuZ]

I really liked the idea that there is some kind of planet that's your "goal", but you dont know anything about it and it's orbit and where it is. Then you have to explore and find different stuff like monuments on various planets and moons to gather data about the mysterious planet. Finally you can get to it, which should be not that easy. Maybe you should get some new tech when you did it.

[Majorjim!]

Please please bring back flat areas on Duna! 

 Moving along those flat plains with the steep mountains either side of you was magical. New Duna is just endless undulating hill-lets. It's dull as ditch water. Also old Duna surface looked better from orbit too. 

[Warzouz]

6 minutes ago, Majorjim said:

Please please bring back flat areas on Duna! 

 Moving along those flat plains with the steep mountains either side of you was magical. New Duna is just endless undulating hill-lets. It's dull as ditch water. Also old Duna surface looked better from orbit too. 

I must say that Duna is the most disappointing ting planet. It's usually the first one to go. But there is not much to see and it has a poor biome design. Even Ike is more interesting. Biome count should depend on the planet size.

[hannyladom]

After the unity upgrade, can Squad add the atmosphere back to eeloo?

[Red Iron Crown]

3 minutes ago, hannyladom said:

After the unity upgrade, can Squad add the atmosphere back to eeloo?

When did Eeloo have an atmosphere? Moho did for a while, but I don't recall Eeloo ever having one.

[Foxster]

I don't think we'll get  a roadmap because I strongly suspect Squad thinks they have finished KSP. Oh, there's tweaks to be done and the odd bit to be added but overall what you see is what they aimed to deliver. 

The only stuff on the horizon is ports to other platforms i.e. zero new content. 

There are two ways things could go. Either the revenue is going to dry up because customer saturation has been reached and the game goes into maintenance mode. Or else someone at Squad gets a tiny bit creative and announces some paid-for DLCs to maintain an income stream from the game to permit ongoing development. 

What KSP needs for longevity is new "stuff", not tweaks around the edges. We need another race, we need ten more solar systems and warp drive, we need minecraft-like mining, we need probe cores developing consciousness and locking Kerbals out in space, we need to discover the remains of ancient civilizations, we need someone at Squad with some imagination and the balls to make "stuff" happen!