PCGamer: NMS vs KSP

[Pecan]

No Man's Sky (NMS) has lots of planets, full of life.  PCGamer says they enjoy visiting KSP's 7 more, even if there isn't much to do on them: 

"Kerbal Space Program and No Man's Sky don't aspire to the same goals, but there's a lot that can be learned from the dopey little kerbals and their obsession with dying on other planets. Compared to No Man's Sky and Elite: Dangerous, Kerbal Space Program's planets are barren, waxy balls of nothing. Yet the moment I landed my first kerbal on the 'Mun' (moon), I really felt like a little green Neil Armstrong making one giant leap for kerbalkind."

http://www.pcgamer.com/what-no-mans-sky-could-learn-about-exploration-from-kerbal-space-program/

[Scotius]

On the other hand, i would love to have procedurally generated planets in KSP. And life beyond Kerbin - at least on Laythe (and maybe Duna). Plus exploration options when i would stumble across something new (that would give me some Science points). Maybe one day...

[cantab]

"It's not about where you're going, it's about how you get there."

In the case of KSP, that hits the nail on the head. KSP is about spaceflight not about space exploration really. No Man's Sky maybe goes towards the exploration more...but perhaps a game like Take On Mars really gets the planetary exploration thing down.

[Curveball Anders]

17 minutes ago, cantab said:

"It's not about where you're going, it's about how you get there."
 

In my version of playing KSP it's rather:

"It's not about where you're going, and not really about how you get there. But how fun you have failing to achieve either of it."

[Van Disaster]

Basic planetary exploration is pretty dull itself - what you do with the results of real exploration isn't but that is science & not actually innately to do with space exploration ( other than the source of the data ). You really have to go look at scifi for exciting ideas for gameplay.

Perhaps KSP space also needs more hazards, at the moment it's all rather homogenous.

Edited August 11, 2016 by Van Disaster

[Alshain]

NMS and ED are a Science Fiction approach.  KSP is more real, there are no "airplanes in space" like E:D and NMS.  These are real rockets that observe real orbital mechanics.  If you go with KSP, expect to learn stuff.

For this reason I don't think they can be compared.  Realistically they shouldn't even be considered the same game genre.

Edited August 11, 2016 by Alshain

[Firemetal]

2 hours ago, Pecan said:

No Man's Sky (NMS) has lots of planets, full of life.  PCGamer says they enjoy visiting KSP's 7 more, even if there isn't much to do on them: 

"Kerbal Space Program and No Man's Sky don't aspire to the same goals, but there's a lot that can be learned from the dopey little kerbals and their obsession with dying on other planets. Compared to No Man's Sky and Elite: Dangerous, Kerbal Space Program's planets are barren, waxy balls of nothing. Yet the moment I landed my first kerbal on the 'Mun' (moon), I really felt like a little green Neil Armstrong making one giant leap for kerbalkind."

http://www.pcgamer.com/what-no-mans-sky-could-learn-about-exploration-from-kerbal-space-program/

Different games. NMS  is set in the future with lots of technology that has yet to be discovered. Ksp on the other hand is present to near future so it makes it tougher to fly around everywhere with a pulse engine.

NMS is a lot bigger than KSP but bigger doesn't mean better. Both games are very replayeable. I agree that KSP gives the player a great feeling of accomplishment while NMS is exploring the unknown.

Both games are awesome and NMS is definitely on my wish list.

[Crocket]

19 minutes ago, Firemetal said:

[...]

Both games are awesome and NMS is definitely on my wish list.

I preordered NMS and got it on release day, and for the two days I've had it it's been an absolute blast.

If you do get it, two words: Expect pirates. About every third or fourth launch to another planet/Atlas interface/station I get killed by pirates for carrying one too many Heridium. 

[Robotengineer]

It's difficult to compare the two games, though I get where the author is coming from.

A KSP/NMS hybrid that blends the sandbox nature of KSP with the art direction and procedural generation of NMS would be awesome.

[Firemetal]

1 hour ago, Crocket said:

I preordered NMS and got it on release day, and for the two days I've had it it's been an absolute blast.

If you do get it, two words: Expect pirates. About every third or fourth launch to another planet/Atlas interface/station I get killed by pirates for carrying one too many Heridium. 

Been watching people play it. I probably won't get it for another month or more but it does still look awesome. I mean it is basically 3D starbound and I love Starbound so it is going to be good.

[Kermanzooming]

3 hours ago, Robotengineer said:

A KSP/NMS hybrid that blends the sandbox nature of KSP with the art direction and procedural generation of NMS would be awesome.

I'm not exactly sure about that... KSP takes a lot of planning to design a viable ship for a mission,  and a ship that worked in a planet in NMS wouldn't probably work in the next one.

KSP is a game about ship design and flight, and if you want realism that is difficult to make compatible with travelling to different bodies.

The same ship couldn't travel to Mars and Venus; wildly different needs.

[Foxster]

I think both games have stuff to learn from each other - or at least I hope they do that.

KSP has great craft building and mission execution but once you get where you are going its "meh". NMS is pretty much the opposite. 

KSP would benefit from more to do at the destinations so there feels like there was a point to getting there. NMS could do with more of a technical challenge getting to the next planet so there is a sense of achievement. 

[Pecan]

I started this thread to flag the PCGamer's article use of KSP.  Pretty good that this is the standard they instantly think of, despite the fact they "don't aspire to the same goals", as it states.

That said, in reviews of both NMS and Elite I'm getting the same impression - there might be lots of planets and they might be very different from each other but apart from just looking at them there isn't any more reason to visit them than KSP's.  The point the article is making, I think, is that at least KSP gives you a construction challenge in reaching the planets and, therefore, more of a sense of purpose and achievement.

And KSP is cheaper! *grin*

Edited August 12, 2016 by Pecan

[Signo]

Gameplay in NMS is pretty repetitive - feels like "This War of Mine" in space. So I could say it is fun for 30 solid hours but then you are done.

 

Edited August 12, 2016 by Signo

[Swacer]

I preordered the limited edition of NMS about 6 months ago on amazon long before I knew about KSP.  However, my NMS arrived on Tuesday, and it hasn't even been opened yet.  There is just something so addicting about the trial and error of KSP that keep you stuck to it.  There are times when I just shut it off while cussing and yelling, and then times like yesterday, where I finally got our dear Bob Kerman to the Mun, orbited it, and then successfully made it home with 175 science, which makes you just stand up and cheer.

Is NMS great? No idea....for now, Jeb is preparing for a Mun landing.

Edited August 12, 2016 by Swacer

[LordFerret]

There's no comparing the two, they're different animals... apples and oranges. The author at PCGamer, like all other authors out there, needs to write something or he gets no paycheck this month.

[AlexisBV]

11 hours ago, Kermanzooming said:

I'm not exactly sure about that... KSP takes a lot of planning to design a viable ship for a mission,  and a ship that worked in a planet in NMS wouldn't probably work in the next one.

KSP is a game about ship design and flight, and if you want realism that is difficult to make compatible with travelling to different bodies.

The same ship couldn't travel to Mars and Venus; wildly different needs.

What's the point you're trying to make? In KSP, a ship that works for Duna will certainly not work for Eve (though a ship that gets you to Eve and back should be overkill for Duna).

[Aragosnat]

37 minutes ago, AlexisBV said:

What's the point you're trying to make? In KSP, a ship that works for Duna will certainly not work for Eve (though a ship that gets you to Eve and back should be overkill for Duna).

The point I believe he is trying to make is. In NMS all ships can go to the same place. The only diffrence like is. How long it takes you to get there and how much you can carry. While in KSP you actually have to plan for it and design a craft that can handle the the planet/moon in question.

[Kerbart]

Interesting article & opinion. Given how much NMS was anticipated and hyped...

KSP is, to dig up the age-old cliché, all about the journey, and not the destination. And on various levels; not just the actual travelling between celestial bodies, but also figuring out how to achieve orbit,dock, transfer to another planets, etc, etc. One will rarely perform hundreds of Mun landings just for the hell of it, after about a dozen (or less) most players will move on to bigger challenges. Other planets, building complex bases, utilizing SSTO's, and so on. Whenever you've mastered something in KSP to the point that it's no longer a challenge, you'll move on to something else, and the game turns out to be rich enough to offer countless challenges.

From the looks of it, NMS is a souped up version of Elite. Travel seems not the be the goal, but rather the means to reach game objectives. I remember from Elite that earning enough cash for the Docking Computer was a big relief, not because it made docking so much easier (by the time you had the cash you had also mastered the art of docking) but more because you could skip the repetitive docking. A bit like launching with mechjeb (I use a kRPC script for the same reason).

It feels like it comes down to something similar like “precision vs accuracy.” Perhaps now it’s “variety vs variation?” I get the impression that the procedural generation delivers a wide variety in visual content, but offers a much smaller variety in conceptual content. And that becomes apparent after visiting a dozen planets that all have feature x (in different shapes and sizes), animals y and terrain z.

Which might be a good warning about wishing for procedurally generated terrain in KSP as well. Visually appealling but in the end it would just be more variety of the same features. Custom content - the arches on mun, the kraken, the ufo... That's the stuff we really need more of; true surprises.

[something]

Certainly. If you generate something with the aid of an algorithm you will be able to spot its mode of operation if your sample size is big enough. So asking for new planets should always go along with a great level design. There has been the idea of implementing this riddle into KSP which would have let you find the precursor civilisation's planet. We need something like that - probably in terms of a mod?

[Stratzenblitz75]

1 hour ago, Kerbart said:

Interesting article & opinion. Given how much NMS was anticipated and hyped...

KSP is, to dig up the age-old cliché, all about the journey, and not the destination. And on various levels; not just the actual travelling between celestial bodies, but also figuring out how to achieve orbit,dock, transfer to another planets, etc, etc. One will rarely perform hundreds of Mun landings just for the hell of it, after about a dozen (or less) most players will move on to bigger challenges. Other planets, building complex bases, utilizing SSTO's, and so on. Whenever you've mastered something in KSP to the point that it's no longer a challenge, you'll move on to something else, and the game turns out to be rich enough to offer countless challenges.

From the looks of it, NMS is a souped up version of Elite. Travel seems not the be the goal, but rather the means to reach game objectives. I remember from Elite that earning enough cash for the Docking Computer was a big relief, not because it made docking so much easier (by the time you had the cash you had also mastered the art of docking) but more because you could skip the repetitive docking. A bit like launching with mechjeb (I use a kRPC script for the same reason).

It feels like it comes down to something similar like “precision vs accuracy.” Perhaps now it’s “variety vs variation?” I get the impression that the procedural generation delivers a wide variety in visual content, but offers a much smaller variety in conceptual content. And that becomes apparent after visiting a dozen planets that all have feature x (in different shapes and sizes), animals y and terrain z.

Which might be a good warning about wishing for procedurally generated terrain in KSP as well. Visually appealling but in the end it would just be more variety of the same features. Custom content - the arches on mun, the kraken, the ufo... That's the stuff we really need more of; true surprises.

Agreed. I'm against procedural terrain in KSP for exactly this reason. 

Just look at Duna for instance. Its procedural hills, while cool at first, quickly wear out their welcome. Once you've seen one expanse of rolling hills on Duna, you've seen them all. 

Handcrafted planets will always be more interesting than procedural ones to me. Imagine how cool Duna would be if the Dev's hand crafted dormant volcanoes, canyons, ancient river beds and deltas, and craters to cover Duna's surface. Sure, a procedural generator can create these features (Just look at space engine, for example). However, only a human designer can design the features to compliment one another; to make Duna feel like a real and interesting planet, rather than a mish-mash of randomly generated noise.

[Kermanzooming]

4 hours ago, AlexisBV said:

What's the point you're trying to make? In KSP, a ship that works for Duna will certainly not work for Eve (though a ship that gets you to Eve and back should be overkill for Duna).

Exactly that. My point is that KSP is a game about designing optimal ships for a particular mission, and that usually means a design for a planet is not good for another one, while in NMS you use the same ship no matter which planet are you visiting.

[pandaman]

Although I haven't seen NMS firsthand yet, it seems to me that the two games are very different.

NMS, from what I've seen is about surviving, exploring, trading and combat that just happens to use 'space' as it's setting.  This could equally be done in say an oceanic setting, using different islands and sailing ships instead of planets and spacecraft.

Whereas KSP is about the dynamics of 'real Iife' space flight itself and the particular challenges associated with it.  The 'exploration' side, although an important part of the game, is secondary to this, and is there essentially to give a 'purpose' or 'focus' for the flight aspect by offering different design and navigation challenges depending on the destinations chosen.

I think a lot of players will like both games, but for different reasons, because they each offer aspects that the other doesn't.

[numerobis]

KSP embodies the "failure is fun" ethos almost as well as Dwarf Fortress, but teaches you about rocketry rather than geology, smelting, agriculture, and civil engineering.

Oh, and KSP skips most of the "success is tedious" aspects.

[AlexisBV]

On 12/08/2016 at 5:01 PM, Kermanzooming said:

Exactly that. My point is that KSP is a game about designing optimal ships for a particular mission, and that usually means a design for a planet is not good for another one, while in NMS you use the same ship no matter which planet are you visiting.

Understood, my bad. I got a bit confused by the context of your statement about ships in NMS.

On 12/08/2016 at 0:50 AM, Kermanzooming said:

(...) and a ship that worked in a planet in NMS wouldn't probably work in the next one (...)

That being said, I do think worlds in KSP need more content - even if it's just more varied scatter, and certainly more terrain noise, with an uneven distribution, meaning noisy in some places, smooth in others, just like real terrain.

Right now it's as if you took an elevation map of the Earth and applied a "blur" filter about 128 times (some exceptions apply).