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Printed Manual

Kerbart

By Kerbart
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ZooNamedGames

ZooNamedGames

Posted
Posted

I was considering making a player's guide myself and to be honest, the desire to write one is killing me. I actually have two styles in mind and if I get ANY support whatsoever, I will create both and they will be glorious!

However I feel that there will be no support for a single creator in a market with moderately little demand (seeing as YouTube, the internet, and this very forums provides answers far more effectively than any text) and moderately decent supply despite that low demand. So as much as it kills me to want to write it, there's no call for it.

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Alshain

Alshain

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Posted

I say good luck to them, but I wouldn't waste money on a paperback that can be obsoleted in 3 months.  Even with a release date in October, I doubt it will have the 1.2 ComNet features, and all the things that are changing so rapidly, even the 1.2 pre-release videos from a week ago don't have a lot of the new stuff that has been added.

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Tex_NL

Tex_NL

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Posted

Complete and utter waste of money! As @Alshain already said it will be outdated soon. And if it isn't outdated by 1.2 it will be by the next one.

Besides that, it smells fishy. EVERY sane and experience KSP player even remotely capable of writing a guidebook like that knows it will be outdated very quickly and won't waste his/her time on it. I highly doubt you will ever see a single shred of paper after buying this.

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Rodhern

Rodhern

Posted
Posted (edited)

The idea is good. The fact that the book cover is without a printed game version makes me wary though. As a rule of thumb, software manuals that do not target a specific software version are only worth picking up if they are free.

Edited by Rodhern
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something

something

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Posted

Unless it contains the very basics of the game which do not change with the next version update, this book is going to be partially obsolete with every new update that is published by Squad.

Also 30USD is kind of on the expensive end for a game manual, I suppose - especially considering this game is available at 40USD - which nearly doubles the price. As almost everything is available on the web anyways and as there is a huge amount of support on the web, I feel the book itself is kind of an obscure thing which might be granted access to some collector's shelf.

 

If the book would teach real astrodynamics making use of KSP, this would be kind of a nice thing though...also the price would be fairly ok in that case.

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ZooNamedGames

ZooNamedGames

Posted
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24 minutes ago, Alshain said:

I say good luck to them, but I wouldn't waste money on a paperback that can be obsoleted in 3 months.  Even with a release date in October, I doubt it will have the 1.2 ComNet features, and all the things that are changing so rapidly, even the 1.2 pre-release videos from a week ago don't have a lot of the new stuff that has been added.

I had a solution to that... but seeing as there's no interest in what would be a free book, I think the solution with my ideas will be buried.

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Alshain

Alshain

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4 minutes ago, ZooNamedGames said:

I had a solution to that... but seeing as there's no interest in what would be a free book, I think the solution with my ideas will be buried.

You are mostly talking to a bunch of people who would have no use for it.  If you want to make a free book that teaches the basics, go for it.  But most the people here on the forums would not need it, we know how to do most or all of what you would be writing.  So I think you are seeking interest from the wrong audience.

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ZooNamedGames

ZooNamedGames

Posted
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2 minutes ago, Alshain said:

You are mostly talking to a bunch of people who would have no use for it.  If you want to make a free book that teaches the basics, go for it.  But most the people here on the forums would not need it, we know how to do most or all of what you would be writing.  So I think you are seeking interest from the wrong audience.

Yeah that's my issue. I don't know HOW to outreach properly, or at least where to advertise it.

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Alshain

Alshain

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15 minutes ago, something said:

Unless it contains the very basics of the game which do not change with the next version update, this book is going to be partially obsolete with every new update that is published by Squad.

Even the basic can be obsoleted.  I can just imagine a line in the book that says "You need a heat shield so click on the Aerodynamics tab...." - already wrong.

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Alshain

Alshain

Posted
Posted
Just now, something said:

I wasn't referring to those specific game issues as where to find which part.

More like: An introduction to delta V, the Phyiscs of the Hohman Transfer and whatsoever...

Yeah, I'm sure that is part of it, but the description of the book seems to indicate that it will also teach construction.  Plus it's hard to teach how to orbit before teaching how to build an orbiter.

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panzer1b

panzer1b

Posted
Posted

Waste of money and time, everything from the absolute basics like getting to orbit to advanced things like armor/weapons design can be found online on youtube or on the forum for FREE (well discounting the cost of the internet which you probably need for things other then gaming anyways).  That and the advantage of youtube is that you can look for the specific thing you want to accomplish and only that thing.  This is especially true for unorthodox playstyles (im willing to bet that there is nothing about building combat ships, stock propeller planes, bearings, kraken drives, ect), and while it may help learn the basics, the majority of the extremely basic stuff is better learned through the tutorials and kspedia which are included in the game (by no means do i think these are perfect in current form but they should help a complete nub get to orbit).

Finally, while im not someone who would ever buy this kind of thing, even for those that would benefit from it, 30 bucks is very insanely overly expensive (for something like this...).  Theres a good reason i refuse to buy college books (and havent bought 1 for over 2 years, theres a think like friends which can like lend it to you if absolutely necessary).

That doesnt even go into the fact that KSP has been changing so much over the updates (even 1.2 altered the drag so that certain designs utterly suck and others work much better compared to 1.1) that there is no way the manual will remain valid long term (unless its talking about how to naviagate the main menu which hasnt changed over the years except the submenus ofc)

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Stargate525

Stargate525

Posted
Posted
34 minutes ago, panzer1b said:

Waste of money and time, everything from the absolute basics like getting to orbit to advanced things like armor/weapons design can be found online on youtube or on the forum for FREE (well discounting the cost of the internet which you probably need for things other then gaming anyways).  That and the advantage of youtube is that you can look for the specific thing you want to accomplish and only that thing.  This is especially true for unorthodox playstyles (im willing to bet that there is nothing about building combat ships, stock propeller planes, bearings, kraken drives, ect), and while it may help learn the basics, the majority of the extremely basic stuff is better learned through the tutorials and kspedia which are included in the game (by no means do i think these are perfect in current form but they should help a complete nub get to orbit).

 

On a tangentially related note, there's a youtube video specifically about this, I don't remember the exact name, but it's something along the line of 'information is worthless'. It's a good watch you might be interested in.

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Pecan

Pecan

Posted
Posted
10 hours ago, stibbons said:

Only half agree - O'Reilly are a reputable publisher, and you can be sure it'll appear eventually. Only beware of preordering if you care about timeframes. :)

This.  I was initially going to warn about the ever-later release date for this, as RIC has, but now they've got O'Reilly publishing it things look much more positive.

Despite the speed with which new versions of KSP are being released again, now that the long Unity engine-change is complete, I think that there's a place and need for such a book.  I wish them luck and may well buy it myself when it eventually comes out.

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Tex_NL

Tex_NL

Posted
Posted
32 minutes ago, lajoswinkler said:

Amazing idea. Only basics should be covered, to avoid the thing becoming obsolete, though.

If it's only going to cover the basics it's already obsolete before you even start. As others have already said pretty much everything you ever want to know and learn can be found online for free.

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lajoswinkler

lajoswinkler

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Posted
17 minutes ago, Tex_NL said:

If it's only going to cover the basics it's already obsolete before you even start. As others have already said pretty much everything you ever want to know and learn can be found online for free.

So... if something exists online, a book about it is obsolete?

Some people just like books, dude.

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