How would you improve Career Mode?

[tater]

12 minutes ago, paul23 said:

Failures is not a fun mechanic. - So you carefully planned a mission to duna which took 20+ hours to plan/develop. And then a random factor causes you to "fail", since spacecraft is always "living on the edge" you can't overdesign rockets: even in reality overdesigning like is common in cars is not feasible. Also parts don't fail in reality "often": the only thing is, parts aren't "100% accurate", and lifting off and misaligning by just a tenth of a degree is considered a failed launch in reality. 

I know only of a single accident in space, where people died.

No one carefully plans anything in stock (OK, almost no one), since there is no way to plan. Failure IS a fun mechanic, or can be. Kerpollo 13 would certainly be fun. I managed to bump a ship once and unknowingly knocked something off the craft (figured out after I was well on my way). All future maneuvers were incredibly hard because the ship wanted to spin. That was fun. The trick is to have:

1. mechanics to deal with problems (engineer?)

2. alternate design choices to mitigate problems before they become critical. Ie: more massive systems that are redundant. You pay a mass penalty, but when the random (rare!) failure occurs, you get a message that the SM engine is now using secondary systems (which then tells the player that if they press on, they are operating without a net), so they might have to change the plan

Your Duna mission? Don't want failure, play an easier career mode, or play science/sandbox. It stinks to run out of fuel, too. Don;t like that after you get to Duna (because no KER in stock), then turn on infinite fuel. Same thing.

Failures add time, however, as well. It means you might test things incrementally. The mechanic could be that failure is very rare, and if failure happens, then there is a time period to upgrade the parts in question, and that can be dependent on lots of things. Data, for example. If the craft is in LKO, and has comms, then this can help them upgrade the failed part design faster. If the craft is LOS behind Duna when it fails... then it might take very much longer.

12 minutes ago, paul23 said:

What I think is that more "time factors" should be included in ksp: add life support (time which influences mass) - make contracts tighter on time (ie for some contracts a hohman transfer simply won't work due to time constraints) - and finally add a "tax"/"salery" to ksp so you don't want to "idle around", and you are rewarded for having many missions at the same time.

These I agree with.

[paul23]

Well fixable things can be "fun", so long as a coincides of randomness doesn't lead to an unavoidable failure: if a part fails it should be able to function at "less power", yet be fixable by an engineer. - And it shouldn't be necessary to fly in new items after a part has failed. (repairs can be done on the spot by having the correct recycling modules).

The running out of fuel is also something that doesn't compare: one *can* (even without KER) calculate the amount of fuel beforehand, and one can guess/calculate a theoretical ceiling of how much fuel you would use extra while burning over time instead of instantaneous. And thus one can easily prevent running out of fuel. Failures that just break things are not calculable risks, since even 3 engines might fail one after the other. With fixing this can indeed be alleviated, but if you would add another factor (reliabiity) we would need a lot, lot of extra engines. There are actually only a very few engines, and at the higher end of rocketry (ie when you wish to start a permanent colony on duna) there is already a very clear engine you should choose for each stage.

 

I'm not sure, but I for one hated that solar panels could break (so easily) and there was no way to fix those.

[razark]

31 minutes ago, paul23 said:

Failures is not a fun mechanic. - So you carefully planned a mission to duna which took 20+ hours to plan/develop. And then a random factor causes you to "fail", since spacecraft is always "living on the edge" you can't overdesign rockets: even in reality overdesigning like is common in cars is not feasible. Also parts don't fail in reality "often": the only thing is, parts aren't "100% accurate", and lifting off and misaligning by just a tenth of a degree is considered a failed launch in reality.

Failure can be very interesting and fun.  Dealing with potential or actual failures is a very large part of spaceflight that's completely missing from KSP.  In game, part of the challenge can be how to make a profit off of a lost mission.  Maybe you didn't reach your goal, so ask yourself "What else can I do now?".

There's a mod, TestFlight, that causes random failures.  It differs from the other failure mods I've seen in that it allows for improvement.  Say you launch an engine for the first time, and it's got a 50% chance of failing.  The next time you use it, it's been tested and improved, so there's only a 25% chance of failure.  Next time, maybe a 5% chance.  And so on.  Testing and retesting and test flying is what you do to make sure that carefully planned Duna mission is going to go right.

 

31 minutes ago, paul23 said:

I know only of a single accident in space, where people died.

Which is an amazing reflection on all the people involved.

And while there has been only a single loss of crew event in space, there have been quite a few serious events that were worked around or solved.  Every Apollo lunar landing flight had some sort of issue to deal with, some more serious than others.  Later flights went better than earlier ones.  (Again, there's that interesting mechanic at play.)  Quite a few of them could have resulted in the complete failure of the missions, if not the loss of the crew.

[Chiron0224]

For me I feel like the weakest link is the administration boring (whoops! Freudian slip, I meant administration building).  I never bother with it because the strategies all suck.  It's just a bunch of different ways of saying "Trade resource A for resource B" and the exchange rates are so terrible I never want to use it.  Like I'll commit a decent chunk of science to funds for example and I'll glean maybe 1000 extra on most missions.  Others have mentioned it but the Strategia mod (hurry up and updated it man!) makes the admin boring part of the story and lets you actually strategize long term goals for your agency and invest in different things.  Also I wish the game had a built in crew rotation roster and a means of having Kerbals retire (not just "dismiss" where they go away but "retire".  My Kerbals that were with us in the very beginning shouldn't be the same as those going to Duna much later down the road.  I want to be able to retire them but still look at them and see their accomplishments.).  Also speaking of Kerbals, why are they so damned expensive?  One astronaut costs as much as several rockets depending on the rocket.  Oh, and maybe have more of a reason to not just always take pilots.  I never bother with scientists and engineers since SAS is invaluable and I don't find scientists and engineers to be all that useful.

[Wjolcz]

I think that if part failures ever become stock I would want it to be dependent on the usage (if it's the wheels) or the way you treat it. If you bump a tank, it has a chance to leak, if you bump the engine it can explode or simply stop working, etc. It should be the player's fault if he/she isn't careful. But engineers should be able to fix all of that, of course.

And about the crew: yes, they ARE too expensive. I actually consider cheating some of them in (once I decide to start sending the crew somewhere else than LKO) because of how silly the prices are.

[tater]

I have tried the failure mods, and they make failure too common. The idea would be that you would have some small chance of failure, and once a failure happens, it can be variable in effect. A rocket engine could fail to start, fail to gimbal, be stuck with gimbal pointed X degrees off. Fuel tanks could leak. Stuff could even explode (making a launch escape system actually useful, which it certainly never is in stock. Batteries could drain too fast, if there was life support, it could overuse resources, making it last a shorter period.

A mission critical failure at Duna would be rough. In stock, it would not matter, you send a rescue. With life support, it might be time to investigate vehicles with insane dv to tray and save the Duna crew when there is no good launch window.

Those are FUN problems to solve, and far more interesting than making a space station with 4000 units of monoprop for reasons.

[Codraroll]

10 hours ago, Veeltch said:

I'll stop you right here.

Firstly, the problem of fast-forwarding: time needs to matter. It doesn't right now. If you warp through the tech research because it needs time then the ships arrive at other planets in no time.

Secondly, the "oh, but do I have enough fuel?" is simply the case of the lack of information in stock. Colonization won't fix that. You shouldn't be able to go all "oh, oops! I guess I'm stuck here with this one-man capsule! Time to colonize! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯"

Perhaps I worded myself poorly. What I meant was that interplanetary exploration has, at the moment, too many "obstacles" for inexperienced players compared to what you get in return. So many new, scary hoops to go through once you take the step out of Kerbin's SOI, where you can experience most of what the game has to offer anyway, without needing hours of play time or putting your Kerbals in a situation you can't get them out of.

Colonization wouldn't fix problems directly, but it would add a "reward" that encourages players to take the extra step. Instead of "Do it, because you can! Probably!", it's "Do it, because the gameplay will truly change afterwards". Your interplanetary trips get a real purpose. There is a reward to work towards. You don't just visit a planet, then leave it behind; you "conquer" it. After colonization, future missions to, from and on that planet will be much more convenient.

So the situation you end up in is more "Oh, oops, Jeb was stuck on Duna because he didn't have enough fuel! But I refuse to give up on Duna, because I know it will be worth it! Jeb, we might not get you home immediately, we'll build you a home on Duna! And then you can take the first rocket home." Or, less extreme: "I might lose my Kerbals on this trip to Duna, but I need to make that trip to reap the reward." The loss of a Kerbal wouldn't be a frightening prospect that convinces you to stick to Kerbin in the future, because the Duna base would be worth the strenuous task of mastering interplanetary travel.

[Wjolcz]

Just now, Codraroll said:

Perhaps I worded myself poorly. What I meant was that interplanetary exploration has, at the moment, too many "obstacles" for inexperienced players compared to what you get in return. So many new, scary hoops to go through once you take the step out of Kerbin's SOI, where you can experience most of what the game has to offer anyway, without needing hours of play time or putting your Kerbals in a situation you can't get them out of.

Colonization wouldn't fix problems directly, but it would add a "reward" that encourages players to take the extra step. Instead of "Do it, because you can! Probably!", it's "Do it, because the gameplay will truly change afterwards". Your interplanetary trips get a real purpose. There is a reward to work towards. You don't just visit a planet, then leave it behind; you "conquer" it. After colonization, future missions to, from and on that planet will be much more convenient.

So the situation you end up in is more "Oh, oops, Jeb was stuck on Duna because he didn't have enough fuel! But I refuse to give up on Duna, because I know it will be worth it! Jeb, we might not get you home immediately, we'll build you a home on Duna! And then you can take the first rocket home." Or, less extreme: "I might lose my Kerbals on this trip to Duna, but I need to make that trip to reap the reward." The loss of a Kerbal wouldn't be a frightening prospect that convinces you to stick to Kerbin in the future, because the Duna base would be worth the strenuous task of mastering interplanetary travel.

Fair enough. But I would prefer a proper set of planning tools and KIS/KAS instead of this "Rocket In-Situ Print-o-tron 3000". I actually think bringing stuff from Kerbin to other planets and then using it (base first, staff later) is more rewarding than just landing a 3D printer and having rocket factories on the surface.

Still, not against the whole colonization idea. I just think it shouldn't be that simple. I see it as an extension, not a fix of the career mode.

[razark]

2 hours ago, Chiron0224 said:

Also I wish the game had a built in crew rotation roster and a means of having Kerbals retire (not just "dismiss" where they go away but "retire".  My Kerbals that were with us in the very beginning shouldn't be the same as those going to Duna much later down the road.  I want to be able to retire them but still look at them and see their accomplishments.).

I love the Final Frontier mod.  It makes the Kerbals feel like something more than just an additional, completely interchangeable part.  The game is named after them, they should feel more like individuals, not "stage two, fuel tank #5".  In addition, I built my own system where I assign them certain individual, semi-randomized (but completely useless) information, track their missions and roles, enforce a crew rotation, and can retire them from active flight status.

[Codraroll]

56 minutes ago, Veeltch said:

Fair enough. But I would prefer a proper set of planning tools and KIS/KAS instead of this "Rocket In-Situ Print-o-tron 3000". I actually think bringing stuff from Kerbin to other planets and then using it (base first, staff later) is more rewarding than just landing a 3D printer and having rocket factories on the surface.

I guess the issue I want to get rid of is the endless tedium of having to start every mission fighting your way out of the Kerbin gravity well. Waiting for Kerbin to be aligned with the target planet. Heading back to Kerbin to terminate every mission and collect every piece of Science (unless you haul a large science lab along for the trip). And most of all, the other planets still being hours of gameplay away even late-game, no matter what you're trying to do there.

 

The vast majority of the gameplay of KSP centers around one planet, with the other planets being far, far away, and remaining that way no matter what you do (unless you cheat, of course). In a way, you can say that Kerbin and its two moons are the only convenient locations in the game, all the others require a disproportionate amount of time to reach compared to what you can actually do there. If you could establish locations on the other planets as a starting point for new adventures, we would have a lot more incentive to actually visit them.

 

For this reason, I believe ISRU or "mail-order delivery" of rocket parts on other planets is a crucial element of colonization. Having to haul stuff all the way from Kerbin every time you want to do something elsewhere is completely antithetical to the idea. I don't want to run a delivery service based on Kerbin, I want to be able to play in the variety of locations the game offers, without always spending most of my play time getting there. If you have to transport rocket parts to Duna in order to build rockets on Duna, your ability to build rockets on Duna is pointless in the first place. But I wouldn't mind if building a small rocket on Duna cost the equivalent of a VAB upgrade, the game gives us way more Funds than we need anyways. Off-Kerbin rocket building could stay tremendously expensive, at least until the Duna base itself is fully upgraded (which in itself would require several missions and some serious stacks of Funds).

So basically: The idea of colonization is to allow players to "dick around" on other planets the same way they can do on Kerbin. Experiment a little. Take a plane or a suborbital hopper to see what's behind the mountains. Build rocket cars. Try to fly strange craft to a moon and back. See how close to the Space Center they can land. A need to run continuous supply missions from Kerbin to enable this gameplay, would ruin it completely.

EDIT: Setting up these bases could be a task requiring a fair bit of work, with several missions from Kerbin (or fully upgraded KSCs elsewhere). You shouldn't be able to send Jeb in a can and a rover, and build a base from there. Establishing bases would have to be something you do as totally separate missions after you've completed the initial exploration of a planet, and gotten crew and Science safely back home from it. But once that work is over, you should be able to use the new Space Center just like you use the one on Kerbin.

Edited November 19, 2016 by Codraroll

[Wjolcz]

27 minutes ago, Codraroll said:

-snip-

Ok, fine. I get it. But as I said before: this would not fix or improve the career. It would extend it.

[Chiron0224]

1 hour ago, razark said:

I love the Final Frontier mod.  It makes the Kerbals feel like something more than just an additional, completely interchangeable part.  The game is named after them, they should feel more like individuals, not "stage two, fuel tank #5".  In addition, I built my own system where I assign them certain individual, semi-randomized (but completely useless) information, track their missions and roles, enforce a crew rotation, and can retire them from active flight status.

Me too!  I keep a very detailed excel spreadsheet of all my missions with prime and backup crews status, results, launch vehicle, etc.

[tater]

The idea of "visiting" other worlds because you built your craft nearby them---without first dragging all the mass up there in the first place is goofy. Not interested. When things take time, then the time of flight of your missions gets eaten up by other things you are doing. Needs something like KAC, obviously.

[tater]

The Space Race thread gave me another idea on how to make time matter.

Return To Flight (RTF).

We all witnessed the last SpaceX pad failure, and the subsequent halt of flights until they got it figured out. Right now, you can turn off quick saves, and reverts as difficulty options, but this sometimes end up tedious (like I forgot to make sure that I had a scientist on my craft at the pad, and I need to go to the VAB to change them out). Also, the kraken can always attack. So what to do?

KCT uses the whole "simulation" paradigm to separate real from test launches, and people have to be on the honor system regarding quick saves.

I have suggested limits on reverts and save loads in the past (X per kerbin year) as a new diff level. This is a new idea, a penalty for reverts (quick saves need to be turned off, I fear). The penalty is a delay in TIME.

So you revert from the pad, and RTF might be in 1-7 days (random). Revert after hitting the space bar and it's much worse. Have it random such that it at least several weeks, and above some altitude, it increases with altitude. The max might be a few months. 

This would apply to any parts flown on the craft in question being allowed to be launched until the time limit is up. So you can still fly, but you cannot use any of the parts in the reverted craft in a new craft. A slightly more complex system could have each part in the reverted craft have a different random RTF constraint. So you see the Mk1 pod grayed out, but just a week later, that one comes on line (it was not the part at fault). A week later, several other parts come on line, and so forth. Maybe 10 weeks later it turns out to be the fin that was the cause of failure.

Since you reverted, the craft was never "really" lost, obviously. It's just abstracted as such.

[razark]

40 minutes ago, tater said:

This is a new idea, a penalty for reverts (quick saves need to be turned off, I fear). The penalty is a delay in TIME.

Interesting.  I wouldn't mind seeing a mechanic like that after a crash/flight failure.  (Problem then becomes: What is a crash and how do you detect it as opposed to player's intent?)

 

However, I'm not sure how I like it being attached to reverts.  For me, reverts are needed for the bugs/design failures in the program more so than any player based failures.  I'm happy to accept my own screw-ups, but I need revert for when KSP acts up.

[tater]

16 minutes ago, razark said:

Interesting.  I wouldn't mind seeing a mechanic like that after a crash/flight failure.  (Problem then becomes: What is a crash and how do you detect it as opposed to player's intent?)

However, I'm not sure how I like it being attached to reverts.  For me, reverts are needed for the bugs/design failures in the program more so than any player based failures.  I'm happy to accept my own screw-ups, but I need revert for when KSP acts up.

KSP has no part failures. The real world does. Revert penalties would be an abstraction of the failures that KSP lacks.

It has no other effect, so what's the problem? Yeah, you could miss a launch window... ____ happens.  This is why pad reverts are just a few days, vs post-launch reverts. A post launch revert can be assumed to be either something they caught before launch, or a vehicle loss, think of it however you like.

It;s a way of adding failures that are completely at the control of the player. Accept a small delay (or a longer one), or just bull through the issue and fly it.

Say you launch, get the craft to orbit, then realize you forgot the science experiments. Revert at that point would cost you weeks or months (meaningful if you are using life support and this was a resupply). You can always choose NOT to revert, and fix the craft, and launch the repaired craft. Given that VAB costs nothing in time, you'd literally have lost nothing more than the time to orbit, and some funds. So you can avoid the time penalty by spending funds, and relaunching.

[razark]

3 minutes ago, tater said:

KSP has no part failures.

Stock doesn't have part failures, but those are not the only kind of failure that exists.  Structural failures can occur.  So can design failures, such as incorrect staging order or grabbing the wrong part from the bin during construction.  Both of those can lead to a rocket crash and revert.  I'm fine with that case leading to a delay and part locking as you described, as those are directly tied to the player's actions and the physics of the game.  I do not agree with having a time delay and parts unavailable because KSP decided to automatically assign Kerbals to seats without my consent, or some phantom force results in an uncontrollable vehicle. 

 

7 minutes ago, tater said:

It has no other effect, so what's the problem?

The problem is that there are two different cases: player action vs. game issues.

 

18 minutes ago, tater said:

Say you launch, get the craft to orbit, then realize you forgot the science experiments.

In this case, the delays are acceptable.  But, say you launch, and at 15,000 meters, your craft suddenly overheats and explodes for no reason you are involved with, but due to a bug in the program.  Should you be penalized by reverting in that situation?

[tater]

5 minutes ago, razark said:

Stock doesn't have part failures, but those are not the only kind of failure that exists.  Structural failures can occur.  So can design failures, such as incorrect staging order or grabbing the wrong part from the bin during construction.  Both of those can lead to a rocket crash and revert.  I'm fine with that case leading to a delay and part locking as you described, as those are directly tied to the player's actions and the physics of the game.  I do not agree with having a time delay and parts unavailable because KSP decided to automatically assign Kerbals to seats without my consent, or some phantom force results in an uncontrollable vehicle. 

That would be a pad revert. You'd delay a few days at most (maybe 1-6 days).

5 minutes ago, razark said:

The problem is that there are two different cases: player action vs. game issues.

I fundamentally disagree with only player actions being failures, this is a way around that. Random stuff happens. In this case, ALL are 100% a choice by the player, because you can just not design a crappy rocket.

Eye on the ball---the goal is for time to actually progress in KSP. Right now you can go from "What's a rocket?" to "Welcome to the Lathe Hotel!" in a few years (most of that being travel time).

Anyone who is deeply risk-averse can make a point of testing craft. Which has cost in both funds and time---this is the GOAL. Spending funds, and time. Right now career is impossible to lose.

5 minutes ago, razark said:

In this case, the delays are acceptable.  But, say you launch, and at 15,000 meters, your craft suddenly overheats and explodes for no reason you are involved with, but due to a bug in the program.  Should you be penalized by reverting in that situation?

Yes, why not?

Why did the last F9FT blow up? Why did Philae's harpoons fail? 

I have not noticed many game failures of late, and certainly not overheating explosions. If it was a game issue, it would be reproducible in most cases, and I would have caught it testing my craft out. 

KCT addresses this by charging funds for "simulations." That works, too, but I think I prefer being able to us the craft if the launch works, and not having to redo it. I WANT a non-zero chance of losing a vehicle. 

 

[razark]

Ok, I think I see where you're coming from, and I admit that you have a point.  I still disagree that all reverts should be subject to the penalty.

 

10 minutes ago, tater said:

...you can just not design a crappy rocket.

That kind of ignores the point I was making about some things not being the player's fault, but due to other causes beyond player control.

 

4 minutes ago, tater said:

Yes, why not?

Because the computer programmer part of me recoils at literally calling a bug a feature, or penalizing the user for things outside their control.  That's just... wrong.

 

5 minutes ago, tater said:

I have not noticed many game failures of late, and certainly not overheating explosions.

True, bugs do seem to be much more under control now.  However, my experience with KSP doesn't give me faith that this will continue to be the case in the future.  Any updates could possibly introduce an issue into the game.  And when you add in the wide variety of mods that are available, no one can say exactly what is possible.

 

17 minutes ago, tater said:

I WANT a non-zero chance of losing a vehicle.

Don't get me wrong, so do I.  Failure is an important part of it.  I am using one of the failure mods.

I just think that failures should be to logical reasons, not due to random failures in the game itself.

[tater]

3 minutes ago, razark said:

Ok, I think I see where you're coming from, and I admit that you have a point.  I still disagree that all reverts should be subject to the penalty.

I think there is no way around it. You either have a penalty, or you don't. Another idea I floated a long time ago could be combined with this: limited reverts and save loads. So perhaps you are given a few free reverts per year, and maybe one quick save (you can save as much as you like, but after the free reload of that save, you either get none, or they have a huge cost.

3 minutes ago, razark said:

That kind of ignores the point I was making about some things not being the player's fault, but due to other causes beyond player control.

Very little is beyond layer control. I have not seen any kraken stuff in ages.

3 minutes ago, razark said:

Because the computer programmer part of me recoils at literally calling a bug a feature, or penalizing the user for things outside their control.  That's just... wrong.

I don;t disagree, but do you actually see this in play, because I don't.

3 minutes ago, razark said:

True, bugs do seem to be much more under control now.  However, my experience with KSP doesn't give me faith that this will continue to be the case in the future.  Any updates could possibly introduce an issue into the game.  And when you add in the wide variety of mods that are available, no one can say exactly what is possible.

This is a career game mode difficulty option. Worried about a new patch? Start a new career, or play sandbox until you are sure it is settled. I throw saves away with every single update, myself. I have nothing older than 1.2.1.

3 minutes ago, razark said:

Don't get me wrong, so do I.  Failure is an important part of it.  I am using one of the failure mods.

I just think that failures should be to logical reasons, not due to random failures in the game itself.

Cite an example of a random game failure... I have yet to see any recently. None.

If a failure is as rare as a real rocket getting hit by a meteor I can live with bugs=failure (or frankly as common as the sorts of real-life failures that are not in KSP---there is zero difference in outcome if the "bug" induced failure rates are vaguely realistic in rate.

[Sharpy]

 

Science harvest limits.

Don't treat every new biome like an entirely new planet. Exploring different biomes is good, but exploring different celestial bodies should be rewarded much more. First experiment returned from given celestial body should yield full science reward, possibly more than currently. Subsequent data should be worth much less.

So, e.g. first seismic scan on Minmus (any biome) yields a big reward. You can then about double that by providing seismic scans from the rest of Minmus biomes - the new data from other biomes is still valuable, but not nearly as much of a breakthrough as obtaining the first scan. That way rovers or biome hoppers make sense, but aren't as totally OP as they are now.

[tater]

The whole geology buys rocket parts paradigm is the real problem, not the science per se. That and the fact that science would be better if it was useful. In a perfect world, each new career could randomize the solar system (including scale), and would only give players what they would know about worlds. Mass, orbital parameters, some atmosphere data, and visuals from telescopes on kerbin. Then your far-side probes see new stuff never seen before. A world might be a red disk, with no idea about what it's actually like until you get there (Mars was like this in RL). 

[Joonatan1998]

Realistically, I think it is unlikely they will make large changes to the science/funds/reputation system.

 

So I suggest something I posted before:

 

I think the problem with the current system is that it encourages grinding instead of progress.

The rewards for visiting another biome are the same as the rewards for visiting a new planet, this is especially noticeable on minmus because it has lots of biomes even though it is relatively small.

 

I think the first biome you land in should give large rewards (larger than in the current version) , and every biome on the same planet after that would give less science than the previous one.

The player would still have the freedom to choose, but the choises would be more balanced.