Suggestion: Expanded R&D: Time and Setbacks

[tater]

Yeah, it's certainly complex. KCT's explicit "simulation" mode makes a lot of sense in that regard---it also has R&D taking time, but no pitfalls as per OP's suggestion.

I'm just sort of getting 1.1.2 back to where I want everything to be, so I might have to mess with KCT soon (I tend to play mostly vanilla after an update so I can make fair commentary on it).

This is where "career" vs other modes needs to be considered. I think in general it would be nice to be able to toggle elements of career into sandbox, for example, such that if you tick all the boxes, it becomes career, tick some, and it's science mode, and everywhere in between.

Regardless, it's fair to observe that if you don't like the limitations of construction and missing a launch window---play science mode. I think those limits are in fact critical to career being better. YMMV.

[Kosmognome]

7 hours ago, Sereneti said:

The big problem is:
a system without time-warp ned an FTL engine to go interplanetary, even to the moon...

 

No one wants to disable or remove time-warp. Just to make time-warp a decision with consequences. Making time a resource that is worth managing. 

 

There are lots of ways to do that. Have contacts expire much sooner for example. Life Support would be another example. Salaries (time based) would yet again be another. There are a lot of creative ways to make sure that time-warping is something you have to think about, without making it so hard or punishing that nobody would want to use it.

[mattinoz]

On 17/05/2016 at 4:09 AM, Kosmognome said:

No one wants to disable or remove time-warp. Just to make time-warp a decision with consequences. Making time a resource that is worth managing. 

 

There are lots of ways to do that. Have contacts expire much sooner for example. Life Support would be another example. Salaries (time based) would yet again be another. There are a lot of creative ways to make sure that time-warping is something you have to think about, without making it so hard or punishing that nobody would want to use it.

To me it goes further than having a drawback to wrapping. It's also about spreading out the how often things can happen then balancing the game to suit that. Give the game a sense of pace that is not to compacted or vast. KSP at the moment takes either no time to do lots of things followed long period of floating through nothingness waiting for the next bunch of things. 

I think there needs to be two different time mechanics. Delays such as this can be useful in sets a pace for the game and help pressure the timing of events, it's also make sure distant event aren't to far away as time is always moving forward (unlike in KSC buildings).

The other side is time mechanics which effect how I design a mission. Life Support, Salaries fall in to other side for me.

In the same vain as the research delay I think there could also be a part supply constraint mechanic, so once a part is researched I only get access to a finite number of that part. Model it on a normal supply chain so smaller simple parts are abundant and larger and more complex slows down supply. Production take time to ramp up so a part will be produced slowely at the start and ramp up to full production over a year.

The two together would work well to me as it gives you two options, wait for new parts or launch now with older parts. The more of the new parts you need the longer and more interesting that choice gets.

[Ser]

8 hours ago, mattinoz said:

In the same vain as the research delay I think there could also be a part supply constraint mechanic, so once a part is researched I only get access to a finite number of that part. Model it on a normal supply chain so smaller simple parts are abundant and larger and more complex slows down supply. Production take time to ramp up so a part will be produced slowely at the start and ramp up to full production over a year..

Limited part supply is an interesting idea but it's not optimal from the RL point of view to produce all the parts just for stock because you may want to use just 20% of them and never touch the other 80%. The much better approach is to design a vessel first and then order production of necessary parts for it. So the Kerbal Construction Time does by building the whole rocket at once. Alternative way could be a possibility to pre-order some parts and it's up to you to decide which ones. For example, you know that you'll need 5 LV-45 engines, 10 fuel tanks and 100 batteries in the nearest future, so you can order them to be produced while you are on a long mission. As the stock is made up, the next several rockets will be built faster because some of their parts were already produced. The downside of it is that if you research better batteries your stock becomes obsolete and you can choose to forget about the old parts or use them instead of newer and more efficient ones until your stock is emptied and thus save funds.

Gonna post this as a suggestion at KCT thread...

Edited May 19, 2016 by Ser

[tater]

@mattinoz says it well, it's about pace. What kills the feel of career (aside from the many other problems with it) is that I feel like I discovered rockets on Monday, and I'm landing on the Mun (or farther) on Friday. This is likely because that's probably what happened. 

 

@Brainlord Mesomorph is on to something, R&D is actually a good place to put a broad time sink, and this alone could make the game take up time. We tend to launch a lot of rockets, etc, so the build time/rollout mechanic is something that people would interact with very often (possibly making it tedious), whereas the tech tree is accessed relatively infrequently.

Another possible way to move time in a way that becomes transparent would be to warp time while the player is in facilities (except the tracking station). Since I spend a fair amount of time in the VAB, it would be easy to mess around with even a simple rocket design in the early career, and have many days pass. As long as there is something akin to KAC built in, it's not a problem.

[Kosmognome]

On 19.5.2016 at 3:17 AM, mattinoz said:

In the same vain as the research delay I think there could also be a part supply constraint mechanic, so once a part is researched I only get access to a finite number of that part. Model it on a normal supply chain so smaller simple parts are abundant and larger and more complex slows down supply. Production take time to ramp up so a part will be produced slowely at the start and ramp up to full production over a year.

This is an excellent idea. But the ramp up in production should be due to economics of scale - the more often you use a part, the faster it gets produced. If you do not use a part for a long time, its production lines get cut down and aquiring new ones after you have gone through your stock takes longer again.

The problem with that is again that it only costs time. Don't have the supplies for your rocket? Just warp! As long as time-warping is as inconsequential as it is know, the supply limit will never have any actual significance.

[Pthigrivi]

It's also important to remember that this is a game, not real life, and its purpose is to be fun. I'm all for time based mechanics in principle, but most players aren't coming to KSP looking for board meetings and supply chains. The more time we're spending doing housekeeping at KSC the less time we're doing fun things like flying rockets. Whatever scheme we come up with should be at least as simple and clear as what we already have, and preferably more so.

Edited May 20, 2016 by Pthigrivi

[tater]

It's also important to remember that we have Sandbox and Science modes. It would be nice if the Sandbox mode could add in as much or as little Career as desired.

Career is supposed to be management at some level, but the boring bits can simply be abstracted---they should just be abstracted well, instead of the lousy way they are now.

[Pthigrivi]

Yeah I know there's a lot of angst at the moment about career, but I don't think its that bad. The fundamentals are pretty smart and flexible and a lot of people are having fun with it, including me. Thats not to say adding some important tweaks couldn't make it much better. 

[mattinoz]

To me supply chain (or various time mechanic) is not something I'd have to manage and agree fully that is not KSP fun but it really could be fun in a different game.

To me just teaming a constraint with tighter contracts would be enough to avoid warpping ahead. It would also challenge me to think of different solutions to the same problem and that is KSP fun.

So Supply chain to me would be a constraint I'd have to manage within. Then the timeframes of contracts comes in to deciding which missions I take, is there enough parts to launch a rescue craft to minus and still launch my Duna probe. Do I need to make sure my heavy lifters can be landed for reuse as those engines take a month to produce and I need them in a week. Should I build a heavier lifter and get multiple mission cargos into parking obit at the same time. 

 

[Kosmognome]

8 hours ago, mattinoz said:

So Supply chain to me would be a constraint I'd have to manage within. Then the timeframes of contracts comes in to deciding which missions I take, is there enough parts to launch a rescue craft to minus and still launch my Duna probe. Do I need to make sure my heavy lifters can be landed for reuse as those engines take a month to produce and I need them in a week. Should I build a heavier lifter and get multiple mission cargos into parking obit at the same time. 

Yeah, this could be great fun. It would create incentives to build re-usable rockets and to save as many parts as possible on non-reusable ones. If done right, I'd see it as very compelling gameplay. 

[pandaman]

I don't see a problem with time based game mechanics like construction time and longer term experiments etc. Getting the balance right forconstruction time type features may be a bit tricky, but that's  not really the point at this stage.  KAC type functions will need to be added to stock but that shouldn't be a huge problem.

Time warp can be used of course, but that's fine. Players will always have the option to launch other missions while one is en-route, or time warp for the whole flight if they want to.

[Wjolcz]

On 20.05.2016 at 1:54 AM, Pthigrivi said:

Yeah I know there's a lot of angst at the moment about career, but I don't think its that bad. The fundamentals are pretty smart and flexible and a lot of people are having fun with it, including me. Thats not to say adding some important tweaks couldn't make it much better. 

Well, yeah. The basics of the system are there. The problem is it looks as if someone (you know who I'm talking about) had a meeting and decided "Okay we want this new career mode to be a thing. Any ideas guys?" and then everyone throws their completely unrelated ideas into the box without a look at what the other person has written on their piece of paper and call it a finished meeting.

Edited May 27, 2016 by Veeltch

[Mr. Scruffy]

Well, that´s a thing. It´s observerable even among this like half a dozen people who are engaged in this debate here on this sub-forum. We have many overlapping things, though varying foci. I guess even if we were put together in a team, the result would feel sub-optimal for all of us. I guess, this career mode thingie is a ´presidential´ thing, in which someone must be elected to take the lead and be allowed to follow his/her vision - even if the result will not satisfy everyone fully, at least it could be expected to be coherent within itself. 

Maybe the devs should look out to add an experienced designer to their team. Someone who knows about how to design a campaign and game mechanics in general. I just kinda of feel, that the team is sort of out-its-turf when it comes to this. KSP´s basic idea was never meant for an engaging management gameplay, after all. See if you can hire a guy who worked on X-Com, say, for a short period of time, to simply tell you how its done and why.

Career mode in KSP (the rest is swesome) is just like the bare minimum, right now, when it could be so much more, for not too much coding effort really, i might add. It should, imho, be the standard way of playing, the rest be more like turorials or ´simplified mode´. A good career mode could really slingshot KSP to legendary - you know like railroad tycoon legendary.

The devs aim for comparable player-experiences, so why not throw in some modern RPG-elements? You know like main and side-quests kind of things, that are, yes, dread-it, scripted. That´s what the decision on comparable player-experiences indicates anyways- simply stick to it and follow through. GIve campaign play some structure. It´d make it more handlable (give hints on how to proceed, in and outside the game) and more comparable ("so i am currently running THE third mission down the "manned" line of the Jool tree, but i cant figure out how to build a base holding 4 kerbals in Jool´s orbit - any hints? - PS: I did read the in-game mission guide carefully, as i have that option on - i am a noob ;P").

Give us some exciting main-quest, around the annomalies, while you are at it, too. Some 2001-esque mystery.