How should I phrase this?

[Matuchkin]

Recently, I realized I am rapidly getting bored of KSP. This is because of the extreme [level of simplicity?] this game has. Like, I don't know how to phrase this, "level of simplicity" isn't quite the way to put it. I mean that, in current KSP, rocket construction is achieved by plainly stacking parts onto other parts. Instead, I'd like to see configurable parts, that interlock with each other cleanly and create spacecraft that look more complex. For example, say I want to create a launch vehicle: RO or not, this usually amounts to stacking cylinders and engines into something that looks like a tower of cylinders. Sure, this can look nice and smooth if done correctly, but it feels more like a bunch of cylinders than a complex rocket, if you know what I mean.

I'd say we add some more complexity: for example, instead of stacking fuel tanks that are by default filled with fuel and oxidizer, we can create each tank out of several simple parts: say, the player will have to connect a pill-shaped fuel tank, a pill-shaped oxidizer tank, and a pressurizer bottle together, then surround this with a fairing. Perhaps, if we can have a building other than the VAB, dedicated to creating rocket parts in this fashion (a. Combining the tanks, b. Loading them into the VAB as one part), we can reduce the part count that the extra tanks will give while raising the immersion, the feeling that you're building a rocket for real. Of course, there can be many ways of doing this.

[panzer1b]

You can "sortof" do this by using procedural fuel tanks.  Set one of the tanks to entirely oxidizer and another to entirely LF (or if you use a realism mod i believe those tanks can be filled with realistic fuel types too) and stack them ontop of each other.  It wont give you the exact effect you want, but its a little more realistic then the current LFO integrated into everything tanks.

As for stock rockets being boring, i can agree and disagree with that.  I generally use rockets as a means and not an end and mostly only care about the payload (capital ships, carriers, starfighters, tanks, buildings, ect), so for me most rockets are just simple 3.5m parts with the biggest engines and fuel tank options since i could care less about what they look like or how the work.  That said, a few of the rockets i use are actually engineering marvels since you cant always cram something the size of the VAB into a fairing and expect it to work properly.  So it defenetely doesnt end up as a normal looking or easy to build rocket when it has to lift things akin to macey dean's carrier into orbit...

Anyways, if rockets arent your thing there is plenty of other stuff to do in KSP.  I suggest you give spaceplanes/SSTOs a shot, they are way more complicated to build then rockets.  Caring more about sci-fi, the first ever thing i actually got into orbit in KSP was a SSTO (very few cool sci-fi movies actually use cylindrical rockets as anything but weapons on fighters).  Its much more challenging and while its not entirely realistic (it seems you annoyance with stock rockets being they are less realistic because dont have individual fuel tanks for each propellant section), give it a shot if you are being bored by the stock rockets which i can totally agree, are way to simple to make (especially if you use 3.5m parts and your payload isnt in excess of 500t)...

[James Kerman]

I think it would make a great and useful mod.

I think the "level of simplicity" is relative to hours and skill in the game and I feel that a complex rocket building addition to stock would add another level of difficulty to the learning curve new players go through.  It would also make image diagnosis difficult for people posting in the gameplay questions section.

[p1t1o]

First thing that strikes me is that real rockets closely resemble a simple cylinder with an engine on the bottom too, and even so I have no problem making rockets look complex.

On the other hand, there are plenty of mods which do something like what you want, procedural tanks, moddable tank contents, multi-part different shaped tanks like spheres, hemispheres, rings etc.

I do like the sound of kinda creating "custom" parts that are welded into a single part though, lots of scope to things like that. Does seem like a bit of a long-shot however.

[Firemetal]

Stock KSP isn't for everyone but I can tell you: there is way more than enough to do with stock parts. Visit every planet and return, colonize every planet, low mass missions to some of the planets and back, re-creations of real rockets and missions  and when you run out of things to do, you can start downloading mods and exploring modded KSP. The only time I'm bored is when I can't think of a mission. But lets stay on topic.

So you want to be able to weld parts together but not only do you want them to become one part, you want them to look like one part. Ok simple enough but...

54 minutes ago, Matuchkin said:

while raising the immersion, the feeling that you're building a rocket for real.

If you mean building a real rocket, then I'm not sure if you are right. Like it or not, real rockets are kind of stacked cylinders. The only difference is, when making fuel tanks, the make it one tank instead of a couple of them stacked. Why? To make it more simple. There is a mod that allows you to create your own custom fuel tanks like this. Procedural parts. Yeah. @p1t1o Ninja'd me on this one. But I do not agree with this suggestion.

Fire

[Wjolcz]

I guess we all have different reasons of why we get bored with KSP.

I get bored when I play stock career. It's all about unlocking them parts. I don't want to do that. I want to explore. KSP's exploration aspect is rather lacking. You don't have any mission planning tools (launch window alarms and such), the contracts are random and you can unlock the tree before the first launch window occurs. Heck, you can even unlock it the first few hours of game time by setting the science yield to the maximum values and drive around KSC. Or cheat it in. Not much difference between these two ways of unlocking the tree and "beating the game".

Edited December 16, 2016 by Veeltch

[CSE]

Have you tried the UbioZur part welding mod?

[KSK]

Making my own parts like that wouldn't really be my thing, but provided that I could save them as sub-assemblies, I'd be OK with it. Actually, I can see one huge benefit - it would require single-propellant tanks which would be good for nuclear powered vessels.

If I had to build every tank from scratch for every rocket though, it would get old pretty fast.