Career Mode...

[Andem]

So, I have almost always tried to play career with mods. But it always stopped being fun at a certain point, or got too grindy, which are both valid complaints for career mode. But, having recently made a stock career mode game, it's actually very fun! Career mode seems to be very finely tuned to the stock game, with little to no wiggle room. Thoughts? Does this need to be remedied? Do you share this experience?

[Wjolcz]

I do not share the same experience.

What mods did you use?

[Andem]

2 minutes ago, Veeltch said:

I do not share the same experience.

What mods did you use?

If it's stockalike, I probably have it installed...

 

BDB, Tantares, MKS, USILS, To name a few. I actually never got far enough in career to use many of my mods, because the game felt downright painful to play in career.

[Wjolcz]

I tried to play a stock career with KER and KAC installed and it also felt pretty painful.

I just wish there was a properly designed career mode with everything in place from the beginning. All that we have now is a poorly thought out unlock-a-part (by doing a bunch of unrelated things!) mode that is being "tweaked" all the time by moving parts around the tree and adjusting the rewards of still random contracts system.

Since SQUAD makes my vessels unlaunchable every time I update the game they could at least take some time and make me want to start the save from the beginning. Right now there's no motivation for me to play it. It just sucks.

[Wjolcz]

Also why the hell do I have to spend hours in the Mission Control hunting for the missions that interest me instead of designing my own? I don't care about contract "weighting", or whatever it's called. It's still random. And random doesn't equal sandbox, which is what this game was meant to be from the start. Sandbox means picking your own path of progression, not a mix of linear tech tree and random contracts.

[Andem]

I agree with you, career is, quite frankly, half baked as it is right now. In my opinion, Career would be better with more subtle mechanics than "Do or die" rules.

[GoSlash27]

I also don't agree. Stock career is way too easy right now. Not only is it not grindy, but you can blow your way through most of the tech tree in a matter of days and complete the entire tech tree and upgrade all the facilities in a matter of weeks.

Best,
-Slashy

[tater]

I play a stock career every time they update the game, first to give myself permission to make suggestions (or face it, complain), and second, I then add in mods that have been patched to test those.

i can't remember the last time there was a non-zero chance of not succeeding in career. Always the same, and it gets easier as you go.

[regex]

Stock career is either too easy or too grindy depending on settings; I have yet to find a middle ground, although 50% science returns results in fairly satisfactory gameplay.

[Wjolcz]

I think it's also worth talking about the management part of the career mode. Right now there is none. What I think would be great is some sort of government funding. The player would have to think about the consequences of spending too much, making the launchers as cheap as possible and things like that.

Maybe make it as a separate mode where the funding is influenced by reputation.

"Government Mode"

[Hodari]

On 8/18/2016 at 8:21 PM, Veeltch said:

Also why the hell do I have to spend hours in the Mission Control hunting for the missions that interest me

Unless you're being FAR too picky about which missions you take, I don't think this should be a problem.  Early on, I usually have no trouble finding at least a few contracts that can be completed on the missions I wanted/needed to do next anyway.  And even if I don't get a contract for the next place I wanted to go, the World First bonuses will probably cover the cost.  Later on, it's easy to save up so much extra money that you don't really have to worry about it.  Either way, just check what contracts are available before each mission, take the ones you like or the ones you can complete without having to go too far out of your way, and then do your mission and check back again after that to see what new ones are available. 

Not to mention that there are tons of mods which provide their own sets of contracts and allow you to disable certain types of stock contracts.

[ZooNamedGames]

I've been thinking of a superior version of career that mixes a bunch of real life aspects into the game so doing contracts aren't as boring and repetitive. There will be a mixture of things to do and see, and for a reason with a respectable reward. I'll make a thread for that here in a bit.

[Wjolcz]

1 hour ago, Hodari said:

Unless you're being FAR too picky about which missions you take, I don't think this should be a problem.

I don't care. I want to set my own goals, not a set of random objectives. I want to go into the MC and say "OK, so I'm going to that planet and want to see what I can do there to fully exploit the mission profile".

Contracts are random, which doesn't help anyone. Some people like it, some don't. If we could pick the objectives ourselves nobody would get hurt, no matter if he/she likes contracts fishing, or likes to set their own goals.

1 hour ago, Hodari said:

Either way, just check what contracts are available before each mission, take the ones you like or the ones you can complete without having to go too far out of your way, and then do your mission and check back again after that to see what new ones are available.

Thanks for a tip. As if there was some other way to pick and complete the missions. As I said before: I don't want to wait for the perfect contract. I want to make my own.

1 hour ago, Hodari said:

Not to mention that there are tons of mods which provide their own sets of contracts and allow you to disable certain types of stock contracts.

Tell that to the console crew.

[Jovus]

Strategia is good. I recommend Strategia. You should use Strategia.

Strategia has limitations.

The way contracts are now, you take a contract for a job, you do that specific job, you get paid, you take another contract. It doesn't provide much structure for progression.

Here's what I'd like.

Contracts are time-limited agreements to complete some level or number of goals in exchange for quarterly (or weekly, or yearly, or whatever) payments of an agreed-upon amount. What are these goals? Depending on what kind of space program you want to run, they could be, 'put up a satellite constellation', 'create and maintain a functional orbital platform', 'prototype specific or area-limited new technologies' (like rocket engines; you might get a contract that pays for you to unlock five new engines), 'explore this celestial body' (with all sorts of different possibilities, from number of biomes landed in to number of satellites orbiting in sensible orbits), 'develop a new launch vehicle with these specs', or something else.

In order to get a contract, you bid for it through the admin building. You go, "I want to explore Eve," so you put together an "explore Eve" contract with various parameters helpfully defaulted - how many landings in what different biomes, how many kerbals to walk the surface/plant flags, how many surface samples to return, what experiments to do, whether there will be return missions, etc. - and how much you want to get paid for this. The higher your reputation, the more likely you'll get paid more, and the more complicated you can make the mission. With low rep, they won't believe you can do a Jool-5 mission; with high rep, if you want to do a complete grand tour you'll find people willing to finance it.

If you bid too high for too little complexity, your offers should be few, and perhaps not meet your standards. Maybe the counteroffer gives you less money. Maybe they also want a couple of other things done along the way. Maybe something else. Failing all else, Jeb's Junkyard will always accept your contract, but the terms will be fairly crappy and the rep gained may not be offset by the rep hit from contracting with the Junkyard.

If you bid too low for too high complexity, of course you'll get a wealth of eager offers. As you can imagine, that carries its own problems.

If we want, we can also keep the current contracts system in a reduced form. If you want you can always go pick up a simple sat launch contract; but that won't be your primary way of making money. Instead it just gets you through tight spots. (Of which there should be some, but that's outside current scope.)

 

I can imagine this system would be a pain to implement, but it nicely fixes the random nature of contracts. No more contract roulette, and no more being pulled in a direction you don't want to go, therefore lapsing into 'boring' and 'grindy.' (I feel ya, OP. I always bog down right around the time I send my first probe to Duna.)

[Wjolcz]

11 minutes ago, Jovus said:

Strategia is good. I recommend Strategia. You should use Strategia.

Strategia has limitations.

The way contracts are now, you take a contract for a job, you do that specific job, you get paid, you take another contract. It doesn't provide much structure for progression.

Here's what I'd like.

Contracts are time-limited agreements to complete some level or number of goals in exchange for quarterly (or weekly, or yearly, or whatever) payments of an agreed-upon amount. What are these goals? Depending on what kind of space program you want to run, they could be, 'put up a satellite constellation', 'create and maintain a functional orbital platform', 'prototype specific or area-limited new technologies' (like rocket engines; you might get a contract that pays for you to unlock five new engines), 'explore this celestial body' (with all sorts of different possibilities, from number of biomes landed in to number of satellites orbiting in sensible orbits), 'develop a new launch vehicle with these specs', or something else.

In order to get a contract, you bid for it through the admin building. You go, "I want to explore Eve," so you put together an "explore Eve" contract with various parameters helpfully defaulted - how many landings in what different biomes, how many kerbals to walk the surface/plant flags, how many surface samples to return, what experiments to do, whether there will be return missions, etc. - and how much you want to get paid for this. The higher your reputation, the more likely you'll get paid more, and the more complicated you can make the mission. With low rep, they won't believe you can do a Jool-5 mission; with high rep, if you want to do a complete grand tour you'll find people willing to finance it.

If you bid too high for too little complexity, your offers should be few, and perhaps not meet your standards. Maybe the counteroffer gives you less money. Maybe they also want a couple of other things done along the way. Maybe something else. Failing all else, Jeb's Junkyard will always accept your contract, but the terms will be fairly crappy and the rep gained may not be offset by the rep hit from contracting with the Junkyard.

If you bid too low for too high complexity, of course you'll get a wealth of eager offers. As you can imagine, that carries its own problems.

If we want, we can also keep the current contracts system in a reduced form. If you want you can always go pick up a simple sat launch contract; but that won't be your primary way of making money. Instead it just gets you through tight spots. (Of which there should be some, but that's outside current scope.)

 

I can imagine this system would be a pain to implement, but it nicely fixes the random nature of contracts. No more contract roulette, and no more being pulled in a direction you don't want to go, therefore lapsing into 'boring' and 'grindy.' (I feel ya, OP. I always bog down right around the time I send my first probe to Duna.)

I kind of like the idea. A bit too complex to my likings though.

I think each chosen program (in the Admin Building) should grant a fixed amount of money for accepting it.

So, basically you go in there and you want to explore Dres. You pick the "Dres Exploration Program" which grants you 100,000 funds. Once it's accepted you get the cash and you are to complete a bunch of objectives around Dres. The program tells you to do a bunch of World's Firsts (orbit, land, etc.). You build a satellite that is capable of doing that BUT you also bring experiments there. Why? Because you have them and designed yourself a contract that will pay you for using the experiments. Now that the program is finished it grants you, let's say 50% of what it gave you at the beginning.

I guess that's a bit complicated. So:

Go into the Admin Building -> Pick a program and get funds to realise it -> Go into the Mission Control -> Design yourself a mission with objectives you've picked yourself -> Go there -> Get rewards

IMO prpgrams should grant money and completed missions reputation.

[Jovus]

Sure. We can haggle about the complexity and the options. I'm not married to anything except the base concept. I want to do a thing, so I tell people I want to do a thing, and they pay me to do it, instead of the current model of they want a thing done, so they pay me to do it, and if I don't want to do it, I don't get paid.

Personally I like the higher complexity, because it lets me tailor what I want to do and still have the game support me. "Go to Dres and hop around," or, "Go to Dres and recover or transmit science from three different biomes," might get old if that's all I can get the system to pay me for on every other body as well.

Also, as a small symbiotic benefit that I've mentioned before, this bid system could be used in multiplayer (because that's coming, right?) to add a little spice and conflict to the game; people compete to underbid each other for the good contracts.

Unless that's not your cup of tea, which is understandable.

[Wjolcz]

2 hours ago, Jovus said:

Also, as a small symbiotic benefit that I've mentioned before, this bid system could be used in multiplayer (because that's coming, right?) to add a little spice and conflict to the game; people compete to underbid each other for the good contracts.

That might be actually pretty fun in multiplayer. In singleplayer? Naaaah. At least not for me. We already have to deal with the so called "third parties". Who are they? No idea. Do I want to deal with more of them? Nope.

[Jovus]

I feel like we might have a slight misunderstanding about what I'm proposing regarding the bidding system. Maybe we don't and you just don't like it, which is fine. But I'm going to try again, just in case.

What I'm envisioning is a sort of 'build your own contract' system where you specify to a large degree what you want to do. This could be highly specific, e.g. I want to put a fleet of satellites around the Moon as part of a mapping effort requiring three sats with polar orbits and telescopes on them. This could be very general: I want to go to Duna.

The computer takes that input and generates long-term paying contracts (like discussed above) that meet your criteria, and perhaps exceed them in certain ways. For example, you've specified you want three satellites; very well, it tells you the exact inclinations, adds some more instruments, and requires a mission lifetime of five weeks. Or, you want to go to Duna: it tells you it wants you to take reports from three different biomes with the thermometer, and land a rocket capable of reaching LDO with three kerbals and a payload of five tons.

It does this a few times based on your input, and generates some small number of 'contracts' with different requirements, payouts, timelines, and penalties, all satisfying your criteria and based around your current reputation. Then you pick one. And you're off to the races.

That's it. That's the core of the idea.

The whole thing about tweaks for multiplayer is just that: for multiplayer. And frankly, I'm skeptical that a working multiplayer mode will ever be released for this game. I agree that having some kind of faux competition with the computer would be either boring or frustrating and definitely not fun.

[Wjolcz]

3 hours ago, Jovus said:

I feel like we might have a slight misunderstanding about what I'm proposing regarding the bidding system. Maybe we don't and you just don't like it, which is fine. But I'm going to try again, just in case.

What I'm envisioning is a sort of 'build your own contract' system where you specify to a large degree what you want to do. This could be highly specific, e.g. I want to put a fleet of satellites around the Moon as part of a mapping effort requiring three sats with polar orbits and telescopes on them. This could be very general: I want to go to Duna.

The computer takes that input and generates long-term paying contracts (like discussed above) that meet your criteria, and perhaps exceed them in certain ways. For example, you've specified you want three satellites; very well, it tells you the exact inclinations, adds some more instruments, and requires a mission lifetime of five weeks. Or, you want to go to Duna: it tells you it wants you to take reports from three different biomes with the thermometer, and land a rocket capable of reaching LDO with three kerbals and a payload of five tons.

It does this a few times based on your input, and generates some small number of 'contracts' with different requirements, payouts, timelines, and penalties, all satisfying your criteria and based around your current reputation. Then you pick one. And you're off to the races.

That's it. That's the core of the idea.

The whole thing about tweaks for multiplayer is just that: for multiplayer. And frankly, I'm skeptical that a working multiplayer mode will ever be released for this game. I agree that having some kind of faux competition with the computer would be either boring or frustrating and definitely not fun.

Ooh, ok. I thought itbwas more of a "here's what I can do and how much I want for it" kind of mechanic with other space companies where you have to enter the market with the right price.

[Jovus]

Yeah. That sounds fun...for a different game.