Disconnect science from tech research

[Sharpy]

Just now, tater said:

This shows the lack of thought/playtesting in the career mode. You showed that you unlocked the bulk of the tree in what, 24 minutes?

No, that shows the flexibility of the settings. Yes, I unlocked most of the tree. 1000% science rewards, max initial science, max initial cash. I used the initial cash to upgrade R&D and SPH, and initial science to unlock all science parts and fundamentals of rover construction. Then I built a crude rover for harvesting science and spent 20 minutes driving it around KSC gathering science. That's the whole secret. At 1000% science rewards you really, really, really don't need to go to Mun to unlock all the nodes.

If you WANT to make the game super-easy, you can make it super-easy. And if you hate one particular facet of the game, you can tweak it in such a way that that facet becomes a moot point. Remember, there's always alt-F12, there's always editing the savefile (it's plaintext, giving yourself a billion science points is like 30s of work!) and there are cheat mods. So trying to remove something because it *might* be exploited completely misses the point. The game is fairly well balanced on default settings, but it allows you to tweak it far, far off-balance.

[Wjolcz]

4 minutes ago, Sharpy said:

No, that shows the flexibility of the settings. Yes, I unlocked most of the tree. 1000% science rewards, max initial science, max initial cash. I used the initial cash to upgrade R&D and SPH, and initial science to unlock all science parts and fundamentals of rover construction. Then I built a crude rover for harvesting science and spent 20 minutes driving it around KSC gathering science. That's the whole secret. At 1000% science rewards you really, really, really don't need to go to Mun to unlock all the nodes.

You'd be better off using Alt+F12. Easier, faster and you don't have to drive anything. And the result would be the same.

4 minutes ago, Sharpy said:

If you WANT to make the game super-easy, you can make it super-easy. And if you hate one particular facet of the game, you can tweak it in such a way that that facet becomes a moot point. Remember, there's always alt-F12, there's always editing the savefile (it's plaintext, giving yourself a billion science points is like 30s of work!) and there are cheat mods. So trying to remove something because it *might* be exploited completely misses the point. The game is fairly well balanced on default settings, but it allows you to tweak it far, far off-balance.

You are missing the point though. We don't want the game to be easier. We want progression to make sense.

If I wanted the game to be easier I would just cheat myself tons of science, max out the rewards, or whatever. The problem is once you do that there's no point in progression, because there's simply no progression by then. It just becomes sandbox with contracts. That's something completely different fram what I would like to play. I don't want to play sandbox with contracts. I want to play career and progress in a way I see suitable. And everyone should be allowed to do the same. Everyone should pick their own path of progression and follow it.

More flexibility, not more science and cash.

[Sputnik 1]

16 hours ago, Veeltch said:

You say "future technologies" as if KSP was supposed to be historically accurate. It shouldn't be, but it seems like the devs couldn't make up their minds and that's why the tree is a mess now.

It also depends on how you look at it. Not all space companies start with a sounding rocket, or a Mk1 capsule. Some go directly for SSTOs, like that british company working on Skylon.

But there's no point in discussing all this as career will never change, so let's just sit and watch devs add more adobe blocks of different colours. AFAIK, career mode is considered "good enough", so who cares?

*Grabs popcorn and reclines chair*

[Sharpy]

1 minute ago, Veeltch said:

 The problem is once you do that there's no point in progression, because there's simply no progression by then. It just becomes sandbox with contracts.

There's still progression with funds, with stars of kerbals, with infrastructure you deploy around the system, with constructions you create, with reputation.

Lots of players max out the science tree pretty fast, and then they don't stop playing "because there's no progression" - only then they begin playing for real, because the "tutorial phase" has ended, and one can finally begin building megastructures (with full cash-related consequences of failure), can undertake really challenging missions (with consequence of losing the 5-star kerbals... lemme say bringing a kerbal to 4 stars is already a challenge!), they can get really picky about contracts, discard the stupid ones and undertake ones that are truly challenging (example). They undertake the forum challenges, they make truly original constructions, and the game only begins for them then.

If you treat the science tree as the only progression present in the game, you're deeply misguided.

[Wjolcz]

1 hour ago, Sharpy said:

There's still progression with funds, with stars of kerbals, with infrastructure you deploy around the system, with constructions you create, with reputation.

Lots of players max out the science tree pretty fast, and then they don't stop playing "because there's no progression" - only then they begin playing for real, because the "tutorial phase" has ended, and one can finally begin building megastructures (with full cash-related consequences of failure), can undertake really challenging missions (with consequence of losing the 5-star kerbals... lemme say bringing a kerbal to 4 stars is already a challenge!), they can get really picky about contracts, discard the stupid ones and undertake ones that are truly challenging (example). They undertake the forum challenges, they make truly original constructions, and the game only begins for them then.

If you treat the science tree as the only progression present in the game, you're deeply misguided.

Good for you. Have some rep for pulling that off.

But I see a problem here. By many the tree is considered a tutorial. I'm pretty sure we've already discussed it, but if the tree is a tutorial then the time spent on creating proper tutorials was wasted.

I'd rather have the tree giving you a choice of what to research next insead of being guided from it every time I play career mode. I'd really like to pick if I want to go manned, unmanned or planes first, but the, as you call it "tutorial phase" tree doesn't allow for that.

I also feel we are going a bit off-topic here. The original concept of this thread was to discuss a system that would allow for paying money in order to research tech. That would keep the money currency relevant even after the tree is finished unlike it is with science points now. Not only that, but if the tree was redesigned the player would have a choice: go into space or stay here and research more atmospheric tech?

I guess these two things are directly connected with each other, so maybe it's not that much of an offtop. Eh... It's kind of complicated, but not as much as the current system. I'll probably draw it in paint at some point to make it as easy to understand as possible.

EDIT: Ahhh, screw MS Paint. Here's the whole thing.

So, maybe instead of reputation staying the same/decreasing with time it should accumulate as you complete missions/milostens and auto-exchange every X days directly into money. Iif it worked like proposed in the linked post ALL of the currencies (money and reputation) would stay relevant even when the tree is finished. No need to leave the atmosphere to unlock parts you want and no irrelevant resources after the tree is finished.

Basically, experiments would keep your program running even after the tree is finished. Right now there's no point in using/hauling them when the tree is done.

Edited September 1, 2016 by Veeltch

[Sharpy]

14 minutes ago, Veeltch said:

Good for you. Have some rep for pulling that off.

But I see a problem here. By many the tree is considered a tutorial. I'm pretty sure we've already discussed it, but if the tree is a tutorial then the time spent on creating proper tutorials was wasted.

I'd rather have the tree giving you a choice of what to research next insead of being guided from it every time I play career mode. I'd really like to pick if I want to go manned, unmanned or planes first, but the, as you call it "tutorial phase" tree doesn't allow for that.

I also feel we are going a bit off-topic here. The original concept of this thread was to discuss a system that would allow for paying money in order to research tech. That would keep the money currency relevant even after the tree is finished unlike it is with science points now. Not only that, but if the tree was redesigned the player would have a choice: go into space or stay here and research more atmospheric tech?

I guess these two things are directly connected with each other, so maybe it's not that much of an offtop. Eh... It's kind of complicated, but not as much as the current system. I'll probably draw it in paint at some point to make it as easy to understand as possible.

So, I see two issues.

1) structure of the tree

2) science for money.

No, the time on the tutorials wasn't wasted. There's no tutorial about every single part in the game. The tutorials get you from the ground, but the tree guides you through all of the game's riches. The game is too complex to be resolved only by the initial tutorials.

The tree in current form is needed for new players.

A second, alternative tree would confuse new players to no end. And by the time you finished the tree for the first time, you're experienced enough to install any of dozen mods that have alternative trees, so it's simply not needed in stock. Besides, no such tree exists that would satisfy everyone. There is no way the one you'd like would be approved by more than 60% of the audience. The mods are both a simple, and a robust solution here, and it really makes no sense to ignore them - as you keep doing. Why would you need that feature IN STOCK? Whose fight are you fighting?

The second - that's what Strategies are for. "Outsourced R&D" does precisely that - buys science for money. Is there anything it's lacking?

What else do you want - precisely. No generalities like "balance, sense, overhaul." Tell me stuff like "I want the Stayputnik part to be available by spending 1500 funds." Good solid examples.

 

[tater]

It's not flexibility, it's poor game design for career mode. For some other mode... whatever. To use the game I used to mod campaign mode for, Silent Hunter 4, it would be like a career where you set a few things, drive the boat for a cruise around Hawaii, come back to port and you'd unlock a late war boat with torpedoes that actually work.

The problem is that any conversation about a particular about career mode (science vs tech in this case) invariably becomes about career in general---because they are so intertwined.

Challenges are for sandbox, frankly. Contracts are all side quests in KSP, and are so random/stupid as to remove all suspension of disbelief that this is a "space program."

Everyone plays differently, and that's fine, but what some of us want is a "space program" mode, where it feels like a real space program. The base/station contracts are some I actually take, and they are still random.

We have sandbox. We have science mode, which is career minus any chance of failure. We have career mode, which is supposed to include failure---but doesn't. The idea that you could ever lose career mode is sort of baffling to me, it's only hard at the beginning, and that's only if you play it without trying to exploit the holes in the system (unlocking everything in 20 minutes by driving a rover around).

I don't think it's much to ask for a career system that feels sorta like a real space program.

 

Edited September 1, 2016 by tater

[Wjolcz]

55 minutes ago, Sharpy said:

So, I see two issues.

1) structure of the tree

2) science for money.

It's not that simple. You can't just "tweak" two things to make it work, or give more options to exchange them (we already have enough) "Tweaks" is what we've been delivered in the past and the whole mode is still inane. I just edited the post above yours.

55 minutes ago, Sharpy said:

A second, alternative tree would confuse new players to no end. And by the time you finished the tree for the first time, you're experienced enough to install any of dozen mods that have alternative trees, so it's simply not needed in stock. Besides, no such tree exists that would satisfy everyone. There is no way the one you'd like would be approved by more than 60% of the audience. The mods are both a simple, and a robust solution here, and it really makes no sense to ignore them - as you keep doing. Why would you need that feature IN STOCK? Whose fight are you fighting?

I'd call the current one more confusing than a tree with themed groups (which IMO would satisfy most of the players as they would simply pick their own progression instead of the one SQUAD picked for them). And the argument about new players being confused is just plain silly. How is a tree that let's you clearly see what path you can take confusing? You either go jets, manned into space, or unmanned into space. The only option the current tree and science system offers new players is "manned into space" and nothing else. If they had a choice of three they would simply go for the one they know best. There's the sandbox and tutorials to experiment with parts if they really need to practice building planes. No reason to force them doing it. And we are assuming they have at least avarage level of intelligence and don't get easily confused when looking at a tree with three clearly visible branches.

55 minutes ago, Sharpy said:

The second - that's what Strategies are for. "Outsourced R&D" does precisely that - buys science for money. Is there anything it's lacking?

There would be no need for strategies at all in the career overhaul I propose. Everything would exchange itself automatically.

55 minutes ago, Sharpy said:

What else do you want - precisely. No generalities like "balance, sense, overhaul." Tell me stuff like "I want the Stayputnik part to be available by spending 1500 funds." Good solid examples.

I've provided plenty of examples. You either don't care about reading them, or simply refuse the idea. But I'll try again:

It's not a "I want this for that" situation. I want to have a choice. I want to go into R&D, look at the tree and see three paths there (jets, manned, unmanned). I want to start a research of one of those with the starting money I have. I see the branch with jets.

Let's now assume I've picked the jet branch. I go into the Admin Building and see programs there (just imagine Strategia being implemented). Each strategy for each body. I pick the "Kerbin Program" which generates me missions in the vicinity of Kerbin.

Now I go into the Mission Control and I see missions influenced by the program I've picked. I accept the ones that tell me to do things in the atmosphere only (because I just started to research jet planes).

I've waited for some time (2 days should be enough, I guess) and I got some wings, a Juno engine and a cockpit. I go into the spaceplane hangar and build myself a plane. I take-off, fly around, complete the missions and go back. Now I've accumulated enough money to keep the jet branch rolling. And I decide to do so (because I'm still not bored with planes).

After some time I decide it's time to go for sounding rockets. I start the "Unmanned rocketry" branch in R&D, go into the Mission Control and pick some orbita/sub-orbital missions ("Kerbin Program/Strategy" is still active). I go out, launch the rocket, do the stuff and get paid more money than for completing an atmospheric mission. Now I have enough money to either: keep going for new tech in jets' branch, or keep researching the rocket parts (rockets are more expensive than jets).

THE END. Something like this is not possible with science points, unless you cheat them in (or max out the rewards, whatever), as the game tells you to go directly into space to aquire more points in order to progress. And please, don't start the argument about new players being confused. They would simply go for the manned just like they would in the current version of the tree.

EDIT: Whoops. Fixed a few things.

Edited September 1, 2016 by Veeltch

[ExplorerKlatt]

Why separate manned and unmanned? The unmanned branch would only have a few nodes containing the probe cores. You effectively want one branch for planes/spaceplanes and one for vertical launch rockets. 

[Sharpy]

14 minutes ago, Veeltch said:

It's not a "I want this for that" situation. I want to have a choice. I want to go into R&D, look at the tree and see three paths there (jets, manned, unmanned). I want to start a research of one of those with the starting money I have. I see the branch with jets.

It's not quite that simple due to heavy overlap.

Currently there are three clear paths:

• Rocket Propulsion (split into Engines and Fuel tanks, with occasional Structural/Utility thrown in),
• Aviation (split into Light and Heavy)
• Science, Utility and Electronics

Science, Utility  and Electronics is needed by both of the prior. Structural is often needed by Aviation, but these nodes are usually reachable through branches.

Rocket Propulsion is definitely needed by both manned and unmanned, but rarely by aviation.

Why don't you try drafting that tree, including where which part goes. Thinking of everyone's needs too - parachutes needed by both, landing gear not too unavailable for space-faring folk, airbrakes clearly available for all, etc.

Quote

Let's now assume I've picked the jet branch. I go into the Admin Building and see programs there (just imagine Strategia being implemented). Each strategy for each body. I pick the "Kerbin Program" which generates me missions in the vicinity of Kerbin.

Now I go into the Mission Control and I see missions influenced by the program I've picked. I accept the ones that tell me to do things in the atmosphere only (because I just started to research jet planes).

So far the game tries to guess your abilities and plans, and adapts to them automatically. If you never reach orbit, you won't even see the "Mun landing" mission.

But your suggestion has some merit as it allows to drive the focus of the game in generating missions. I mean, I send one unmanned probe on Eve flyby, and I have tourists crowding fro Eve landing.

Quote

I've waited for some time (2 days should be enough, I guess) and I got some wings, a Juno engine and a cockpit. I go into the spaceplane hangar and build myself a plane.

Hooold your horses.

You need a fuel tank, an air intake, a set of wheels, some control surfaces. The first research node starts to look rather big. At least in KSP airplanes are considerably more complex than rockets.

The same control surfaces will be used by rockets, both manned and unmanned. How do you share them?

 

Quote

I take-off, fly around, complete the missions and go back. Now I've accumulated enough money to keep the jet branch rolling. And I decide to do so (because I'm still not bored with planes).

After some time I decide it's time to go for sounding rockets. I start the "Unmanned rocketry" branch in R&D, go into the Mission Control and pick some orbita/sub-orbital missions. I go out, launch the rocket, do the stuff and get paid more money than for completing an atmospheric mission. Now I have enough money to either: keep going for new tech in jets' branch, or keep researching the rocket parts (rockets are more expensive than jets).

That's very nice for you, because you like jets.

Meanwhile, my dream is a space shuttle. All my progress is subjected to that goal - building a space shuttle replica. How do I go about it? I want to use my shuttle to deliver satellites to orbit, to launch unmanned probes to distant planets, to deliver spacecraft parts and assemble a Mun lander in orbit from these eventually. But first, I want to have the shuttle. Please suggest the progress path.

 

 

[Pthigrivi]

So let's start with an admission that the science system could certainly use some work. I'm pretty excited to see how the new telemetry system effects things. Still, there are a lot of people feeling left out in the cold and they aren't all crazy. There's certainly room for change. There are a lot of things going on but I've expressed the viewpoint before that the central issue is the clicky repetitiveness of the experiments themselves. 

 

Unfortunately I think what isn't working is masking what could be a pretty solid dynamic. I've tried explaining it in a few different ways but the central issue is one of tradeoffs. What multiple currencies have going for them at least in principle is the potential to create multiple paths to success and giving the player some degree of freedom to navigate between them. Think of it like the multiple mana colors in Magic--they may seem limiting in that you can't pay for white cards with black mana, but they're actually expanding the types of choices and strategies a player can successfully employ. In the case of science points vs funds a player has the option to send a bare-bones mission to satisfy a contract and come away with more money so next time they can build a bigger rocket, or they can pack on more science equipment and explore more thoroughly so next time they can build a better rocket. Choosing which or where in between will get them farther is left to the player. The alternative--having a single currency--inevitably leads to a situation in which one strategy is more lucrative than the others and you're left with only one best path to advancement. You can of course choose a different path, but you always do so as a disadvantage. For instance if starting with probes ended up having the highest rate of return then everyone would end up starting with probes. If doing orbital science around the Mun had the best profit margin in the early game then players would be stupid to do anything else. Role playing is all well and fine, but because everyone role-plays differently what ultimately matters is the incentive structure and how many 'good' strategies are possible. Its true that this potential freedom is somewhat stymied by other factors, but that doesn't mean the underlying concept is unsound. For instance the way the tech tree is structured you're basically forced into a crew capsule for the first few missions, but after about the first hour of play things do open up and a lot of clever strategies become possible. This could certainly be improved upon, by offering advances for world-firsts and tightening up that early tech tree split and generally giving players a greater sense of control, but eliminating science points as a construct actually doesn't help you much. 

 

One of the biggest issues here is at the moment the game has no clear goal. It's open ended, which is great, but there are lots of open ended games like sim city and elder scrolls that give players huge amounts of freedom but still offer some core metric for achievement. Without overarching goals players have defaulted to treating the tech tree as the goal of the game rather than a means to achieve something greater. The most sensible thing to me would be to make the world firsts the object of the game so that successfully exploring and safely returning from each body in the system would be the primary goal. Players could go about this however they liked, going minimalist or unlocking the tech tree before they push past minmus or whatever else they can dream up. They could go hard on mining or set up coms arrays and use small probes to max out their tech or build science outposts. Once there is a clear goal everything else becomes strategy. 

Edited September 1, 2016 by Pthigrivi

[Wjolcz]

1 hour ago, Sharpy said:

Why don't you try drafting that tree, including where which part goes. Thinking of everyone's needs too - parachutes needed by both, landing gear not too unavailable for space-faring folk, airbrakes clearly available for all, etc.

Uh, I didn't think that previous post through, did I? I knew something was not right.

Let's re-imagine the tree layout. Ideally it would look like this. Each branch themed. EC parts with EC parts, wings with wings, liquids qith liquids, solids with solids, etc.

1 hour ago, Sharpy said:

So far the game tries to guess your abilities and plans, and adapts to them automatically. If you never reach orbit, you won't even see the "Mun landing" mission.

Well, yeah. That's what desirable. You want to focus on one thing, not on many at once (unless you want to). That way even the new players wouldn't be overwhelmed with the mission objectives. What current Mission Control does now is generates random objectives based on how far you went. I really disliked that the first time I saw it. It really made me not want to accept most of the missions offered. I'd rather build myself a small station for a start instead of going here and there to fetch that science, reputation and money in order to progress.

1 hour ago, Sharpy said:

You need a fuel tank, an air intake, a set of wheels, some control surfaces. The first research node starts to look rather big. At least in KSP airplanes are considerably more complex than rockets.

It wouldn't be one node though. And it would be cheaper than rockets. I agree that planes are really complex. That's why people shouldn't be forced to deal with them if they didn't want to.

1 hour ago, Sharpy said:

The same control surfaces will be used by rockets, both manned and unmanned. How do you share them?

Well, yeaaaaaah. That's the problem with my post there. WT-like tree would be best for this.

1 hour ago, Sharpy said:

Meanwhile, my dream is a space shuttle. All my progress is subjected to that goal - building a space shuttle replica. How do I go about it? I want to use my shuttle to deliver satellites to orbit, to launch unmanned probes to distant planets, to deliver spacecraft parts and assemble a Mun lander in orbit from these eventually. But first, I want to have the shuttle. Please suggest the progress path.

Aaaaand it's my fault again. Back to the WarThunder way of doing this.

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

There are s lot of things going on but I've expressed this viewpoint before that the central issue is the clicky repetitiveness of the experiments themselves. 

That's one of the problems. I agree, they are pretty clicky. That's why (IMO) it would be best to make them gather science as long as they are active. They eat EC anyway.

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

The alternative--having a single currency--inevitably leads to a situation in which one strategy is more lucrative than the others and you're left with only one best path to advancement.

That's not true. The only reason of this happening is the way strategies work.

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

For instance if starting with probes ended up having the highest rate of return then everyone would end up starting with probes. If doing orbital science around the Mun had the best profit margin in the early game then players would be stupid to do anything else.

Gameplay testing is for things like this. It's simply a matter of balancing the whole thing. And by the way, isn't this the exact way the current science system works? The further you go, the more science points you get.

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

tightening up that early tech tree split

Are you serious right now? Do you really want to give even less options of how to start the tree?

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

but eliminating science points as a construct actually doesn't help you much. 

It does, because the only way to obtain more science points is either: cheating them in, maxing-out the rewards or doing what the game tells you to do, i.e.: going places that yield you the most science points available. If you want to progress other ways (doing low-reward Kerbin missions for example), prepare for grind. A lot of it. Without the science points the only thing that matters is cash. Just like IRL. It works there and does so way better than KSP's "research points". Al that needs to be done is simply adjusting the reards and prices for different nodes. Want to stay here, on Kerbin and fly jets? You won't earn much to leave the atmosphere, but enough to keep flying them.

 

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

One of the biggest issues here is at the moment the game has no clear goal. It's open ended, which is great, but there are lots of open ended games like sim city and elder scrolls that give players huge amounts of freedom but still offer some core metric for achievement. Without overarching goals players have defaulted to treating the tech tree as the goal of the game rather than a means to achieve something greater.

The gameplay and sense of achievement stays the same. The only thing that changes is the way you pay for things. You still unlock the tree, except you decide what you want to go and in what order. Once you've got it all it's the same "Yay, I completed the tree!", except all the resources stay relevant. No need to exchange science to money every time you grab some, because there's none such thing. By doing so we also eliminate the need of strategies (somewhat bizzare and most of them useless), because the system auto-refills itself. All you have to care about is to accumulate enough reputation and/or money for the next month. And the best thing is that you have a choice: Earn money or reputation. You do missions that yield money only, missions that yield reputation only, do missions that yield both (not sure what kind of mission would do that though) do science experiments that yield reputation only. And you always get money out of that, which keeps your Space Program active.

Call me a materliast, but it's all eventually comes down to money. You need it whether you want it, or not.

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

The most sensible thing to me would be to make the world firsts the object of the game so that successfully exploring and safely returning from each body in the system would be the primary goal.

Yes, I agree.

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

Players could go about this however they liked, going minimalist or unlocking the tech tree before they push past minmus or whatever else they can dream up. They could go hard on mining or set up coma arrays and use small probes to max out their tech or build science outposts or whatever they liked. Once there is a clear goal everything else becomes strategy. 

I agree, but the players could also set their own goals with the help of different programs being available. How do the World's Firsts make that possible? I'm really curious about it.

EDIT: Done editing. Also someone remind me why we're still discussing this? It won't make it to the game anyway and I'm losing the interest in replying to comments here, as most of people commenting seem to be satisfied with the current career. I would like to see this implemented as a new game mode, but let's be realistic: this will never happen. Not enough people are interested in this and SQUAD has other things to do now.

Edited September 1, 2016 by Veeltch

[Pthigrivi]

Well I think we agree something needs to happen. You're not the only one feeling dissatisfied. I completely agree on the need to give players more direct control over how career plays out. I mean you're right, Squad isn't likely to throw out everything they've done and start from scratch, but there are reasons for that, not the least would be entering another 2-3 years of development and play-testing to get the balance right. It just seems to me like amputating someone's leg because their toe is broken. No one's doubting the limp, it's just a question of what to do about it. 

Edited September 1, 2016 by Pthigrivi

[Diche Bach]

Despite repeated complaints by players over the decades, there has yet to be invented the "perfect" game, at least not in everyone's accounting.

This is why contemporary computer games which strive toward a "flexible" design that affords an optimum middle ground from which modifications can more readily be applied, and a design which also facilitates modding--while also offering coherent game play in vanilla form--are a better arbitrary standard for judging the merit of a popular game than any given forumites' notions of ideal.

If the game sold, it was "good." If it sold well, then it was "excellent." If it did that and it was innovative, then it was superlative. If it did all that _and_ it broke sales records it was stellar (Minecraft for example).

Note, out of any given 100 gamers, nearly half may find Minecraft to be repellent, and for perverse reasons, any given one of these may feel it edifying to post threads on the Minecraft forums suggesting how bad the game is, even though.

[sal_vager]

On 29/08/2016 at 11:12 AM, Veeltch said:

Seriously, it's dumb. Why do I have to go places to unlock more parts? It's just limiting and nothing else.

Imagine a career save in which you decide that you will be creating atmospheric SSTOs from the start and progress that way. Oh, wait... You can't! Why? Because you apparently have to visit all the Mun's biomes in order to unlock the parts you need!

There are better ways to do it. Money and time is what works in real life and it would not only work in KSP too, but also give more flexibility.

This is a strange thing to ask for, essentially you want no progress in your game and to have everything unlocked at the start, there's sandbox for that, and if you want contracts as well there's cheats built into KSP to give you this exact experience.

Limits and progression are common in games, even as far back as pacman you don't start with the power pill, the same is true of the vast number of games since.

But if you really wanted to "Disconnect science from tech research" it is already possible in the stock game, though I guess as it's not the default or a highly visible setting it's not good enough, but that would be a strange argument to make from anyone prepared to use mods.

Simply click the little "Difficulty options" button when you make a new game, the options you want are:

No entry purchase required on research, turn this off.

Science rewards, turn this to 10%, if you want to disable it completely look for the ScienceGainMultiplier line in your save, after all you don't want to be linking science to progress by converting it into a currency you can use.

Funds rewards, turn this down, 50% is good, go lower for more challenge, you'll find out why in a moment.

Start your new game.

Now you'll need the cheats again, but only one, open the cheat menu and hold the modkey until the extra cheats appear, click on Max research.

That's it, now you are limited only by what you can afford, and you will have to pay to unlock new tech so choose wisely.

Of course this does mean you still have to "go places to unlock new parts", those contracts won't complete themselves and you can't have everything for free, if that's still too limiting, well, you know where the cheats are

I'm sure NASA, the ESA and Roscosmos would all love to start with SSTO spaceplanes and NTR engines, but they require funding, just like in your new disconnected science career game, where science is now just a means to complete those contracts that pay for everything.

 

That's the wonderful thing about KSP, players can tailor things to their tastes, if they choose to do so.

[tater]

@sal_vager, I'm only for such a disconnect of some science and tech within the context of a total rework of the career system. As an individual change... it has little effect. That on the table, I cannot possibly tailor the KSP career to the way I would like to play it, for example. I want it to actually feel like running a little space program. I want to have time actually matter, and not reach the milestone of a Mun landing having only invented rockets literally Kerbin hours earlier.

 

Edited September 2, 2016 by tater

[Diche Bach]

29 minutes ago, tater said:

@sal_vager, I'm only for such a disconnect of some science and tech within the context of a total rework of the career system. As an individual change... it has little effect. That on the table, I cannot possibly tailor the KSP career to the way I would like to play it, for example. I want it to actually feel like running a little space program. I want to have time actually matter, and not reach the milestone of a Mun landing having only invented rockets literally Kerbin hours earlier.

 

You can tailor it however you want by installing mods, tweaking settings in those mods, and even making your own mods if something still doesn't suit your tastes.

Check out these

Kerbal Construction Time

RemoteTech

ScanSat

DMagic Orbital Science

I play with a set of about 60 mods and out of all of them those are the ones that I think make the most difference in making it feel more like a "real" space program (as real as waddling little green people can be).

I also really like Community Tech Tree and Connected Living Spaces, Ship Manifest and pretty much anything made by @Nertea

I can recommend others that I think enhance gameplay at request, but I'll leave it at that to start.

The other one's to check out (which I have not used but which I guess are quite good) are FAR and Real Solar System. Add those to that list above, plus Kerbal Interstellar Extended and one or two of the solar system expansion / extrasolar systems mods and you've got one helluva spicey meatball.

Even with all that, I agree the contracts are a bit "plastic," but as games go they are pretty damn good really. I've got several different types of contract packs installed and some other plugins that enhance the role of contracts in the game. There are some contracts that I just always decline (and I have the settings I'm not penalized for that, I don't need to be punished for refusing to do stuff I find unfun in a game).

 

[tater]

38 minutes ago, Diche Bach said:

You can tailor it however you want by installing mods, tweaking settings in those mods, and even making your own mods if something still doesn't suit your tastes.

Check out these

<SNIP>

I have all those. Mods don;t count, this is the dev suggestions forum, and this thread is about stock. If the answer is "MOD" it doesn't belong in this conversation except to say that the mod should be made stock.

I cannot possibly play the career I want in stock.

[Diche Bach]

I think you're missing a fundamental point of game design and marketing: they need to "aim" for a middle point. You do not necessarily represent that "middle point" of their market, and neither do I, or any specific individual. Perhaps your desired changes do represent the consensus of a sufficiently large segment of current or potential users that the changes you propose would improve customer satisfaction or sales; or perhaps you do not. All you can really do is state your case and let Squad decide, but in the mean time, the game is highly moddable and there are lots of good mods available, of which you apparently make use anyway.

Rather than suggesting specific features, what I believe would be more conducive to the general well-being of the community and the game, is to suggest better mod integration.

I realize that the game underwent a watershed in improved performance about a year or so ago when they rewrote their code to make use of 64-bit processors; but in my experience the game is still not optimized for heavily modded builds, and no one with the talent or inclination has come forward from the community to implement something like the mod management programs that exist for games like Oblivion, Skyrim and the like. Without Wrye Bash, Loot, and even to some extent Nexus Mod Manager and/or one of the newer incarnations, the modding community for those games would likely be a fraction of its current extent. Given the staggering number of mods, some of which exceed professional quality, and the sheer volume of Youtubes that deal with modded Skyrim, it seems fairly reasonable to conclude that: making their games not only "moddable" but relatively optimized to run well with heavily modded builds, combined with some luck of devote and generous community members who developed plugins that further enhanced playability for heavily modded installs.

In my opinion, this is presently what Kerbal Space Program needs far more than anything else: better mod support. Make it easy to run lots of mods, make it eas(ier) to make mods, and promote "vibe" about mods, and the sales will climb, and even though some folks may decry that "the designers are letting the modders do their work for them" the truth is, a game has to be designed to be moddable in the first place. If everything ANYONE wants from a beloved game is available from mods, AND using large numbers of mods is easy and generally trouble free, why would anyone expect the studio to implement all of that variety into the stock game? NOT implementing the variety, but making all that variety EASY for the user to acquire is the way to go.

[tater]

@Diche Bach, I understand completely that they need to aim at the middle of the market, but then again, that would require, you know, bothering to aim at all.
I think that you are under the mistaken impression that they actually aimed at something. I think career mode was an afterthought. They tagged some stuff one without an overarching plan, then added more. If they ever realized it was a poor design, they fell victim to a sunk cost fallacy, and pushed ahead. I don't think there was anything remotely like "Hey, let's design the best possible career mode for the middle of the player base." Not by a long shot. 

[Pthigrivi]

I don't know man, people have been spitballing ideas on this forum for years and I've never seen a convincing alternative. There are issues for sure but to say they haven't thought about it is pretty silly. 

Edited September 3, 2016 by Pthigrivi

[tater]

13 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

I don't know man, people have been spitballing ideas on this forum for years and I've never seen a convincing alternative. There are issues for sure but to say they haven't thought about it is pretty silly. 

I'll agree that career is in fact non-trivial. It's actually much harder to design well than the actual "fly stuff in space" aspect of the game.

Their stated goal was a "tycoon" type game. Since I have never played tycoon (assuming that's a thing), I am unsure how well it managed that. Given that I see career as:

1. impossible to lose, indeed nearly impossible to even lose a single crew member.

2. gets easier over time (i.e.: make it a few days into a career game and you're on the gravy train, and infinite funds/etc are oTW).

I don;t see how it could manage feeling like "tycoon." That sort of game implies a foil, actually, as business tycoons have competitors.

Hence my statement that KSP desperately needs a competing program (government or commercial) as "player 2" to have a race with. That would change everything, as you'd constantly be balancing limited resources and technology vs getting something done NOW to beat the other guys to whatever milestone.

[Pthigrivi]

I mean competitors do crop up from time to time in tycoon games but its really more about building from within and interacting with resources, which is mostly what career is trying to be. Winning and losing also isn't really important, its more about construction. In a lot of ways these are some of the most difficult games to design because its an act of pure mechanics. All of the assets and constraints and timings have to come from within the game itself. 

Obviously KSP is not a perfect game and there are a lot of things that could improve. The pacing and progression curve is just one issue. A foil might be fun, but does end up enforcing a kind of role play that a lot players might not be into. I had an idea of how to abstract something like that in order to solve the -time based cost problem. Essentially exploration contracts would come with a more tightly calibrated deadline and also a rush-bonus date. Beating the deadline will prevent you from incurring the failure penalty, but beating the rush bonus date will get you extra rewards. Players could interpret this either as beating a rival agency or simply as an internally imposed goal. Time then becomes vital, and might even provide a deterrent to time warping through research or construction or other time-based processes. 

Edited September 3, 2016 by Pthigrivi

[Diche Bach]

On 9/2/2016 at 2:35 PM, tater said:

@Diche Bach, I understand completely that they need to aim at the middle of the market, but then again, that would require, you know, bothering to aim at all.
I think that you are under the mistaken impression that they actually aimed at something. I think career mode was an afterthought. They tagged some stuff one without an overarching plan, then added more. If they ever realized it was a poor design, they fell victim to a sunk cost fallacy, and pushed ahead. I don't think there was anything remotely like "Hey, let's design the best possible career mode for the middle of the player base." Not by a long shot. 

So yeah, it was a "seat of the pants" project that turns out to be surprisingly successful and coherent, despite it being a first project for nearly everyone involved (at least at the start). Is any of that supposed to be a "bad thing?"

Correct me if I'm wrong, but . . . this was their first game right? Seems pretty successful to me, and yeah: what they dreamed up initially has obviously evolved a great deal since then. I cannot fault them one bit; I'd be absolutely delighted if the first game I was involved in making was as good and as popular as this one is.

It isn't like Squad is some vertically- corporation, treating their staff like serfs, developing products with purely analytical market-based conceptions and very little creative inspiration, and then selling people the Brooklyn Bridge and promising that if a user subscribes they will eventually turn it into a flying pumpkin wagon.

Re: the "Tycoon Model," I have played Railroad Tycoon, only one. Considerably less sandbox, much less complex building mechanics, and a much more "realistic" setting (various scenarios but all are set in real Earth timelines). Fun stuff, and certainly different than career in this game. I agree career has a bit less of a "trying to win" and more of a "keep going this is fun" feel to it. I disagree however that it is impossible to "lose." I find I have to use "simulation mode" (in Kerbal Construction Time) a lot, and even then some missions/designs have to be retested multiple times before I am confident I can do them for real. Even with that provision, I allow myself to reload at my own discretion: meaning I won't reload if it was just dumb play on my part and a Kerbal got killed or $500K project went up in flames. But I will reload if it was a matter of me still learning a mechanic, or sandboxing to understand a part of the game better, or just seemingly weird random glitches (e.g., airplane taxiing hits a bump at 16m/s and explodes).

I would see a "Tycoon" mode as being an alternative to career mode, not a replacement for it. But again, I think there are more important things for them to focus on for now: mod support/integration. I also think they really should be starting to think about Kerbal Space Program 2, else some sort of pay for DLC. It almost seems strange to me that they have not focused on any additional revenue other than sales of the base game. I hope that just means they are racking in the bucks and don't need to worry about additional products, because I would like to see this studio go the long haul, and be the source of many games to come. They have done a lot for their players, I think they cannot be criticized for thinking of their wallets: asking them to "redesign career from the ground up," for the stock game, at this stage, strikes me as asking them to take money OUT of their wallets and put it on the table. Asking for better mod support on the other hand: yeah, they will have to expend some resources, but a fraction of what redesigning career would involve I suspect, and moreover, they would have support from a significant chunk of the community (many expert modders around here it seems). The end result of this would not simply be a "different career mode that might appeal to some better" but instead: "better core support for mods = better running heavily modded builds = more mods being tried/more mods being built/more buzz on Youtube about KSP mods = more sales of the stock game, and better buzz for KSP 2 going forward.

However, your suggestions/ideas/discussion does seem quite apt for KSP 2.

[tater]

I only mentioned Tycoon because Squad explicitly said that was the design goal of career mode. So to the extent they have even stated what they were aiming for, that's it. Sounds like they didn't come close.

Regex put it well ages ago in another thread that "contracts" in career are just random side quests.

I end up having to just role-play career. I allow reverts, but I explicitly use some as "simulations" (then revert), and then tweak, and launch for real, sink or swim.