A more perfect KSP

[Numberyellow]

I was reading over this thread, and it got me thinking: This guy is suggesting new games, when there is still so much more than can/should be done with the one we already have.

So i figured i'd put together a list of things i think would make KSP More Better™, and see if you guys agree, and if you can add anything to the list. So, here's my (incomplete) list of things i think would make a more perfect KSP.

 

• Bigger, Better main KSC. I'd really love to see the runway we have now, be a little longer, a touch wider, and better/properly marked and lit. I'd also like to see multiple runways...we have a runway for east/west, why not another for north/south?
• Multiple usable KSP bases. Now, i know about KSC 2, but it's kinda crap, let's face it. Why not have a few bases around Kerbin? Like proper bases, with proper runways, and facilities.
• Career needs an overhaul. While i have not played career yet, i have read about it, and talked to players, and not many of you seem to think stock career is very good. Why not a story-based career? I've read that Squad, at one point had a basic lore developed for the game. I think they should take those ideas, and create a story, and then rework the career mode, to incorporate the story, along with suggestions from you folks, to enhance the gameplay experience. I mean, as is, is there actually any real goal in career? is there a point? What is the incentive to complete it?
• ACTUAL controller/gamepad support. Sometimes, you just wanna kick back, and fly your creations. It would be really great if there was a controller menu, specifically for gamepads. I know you can assign controls through the keybindings, but they don't always work correctly, plus, it's a pain to do. For something like this, simplicity is key. You go to the menu, assign your controls, and then go fly....
• Better MOD support/implementation/integration. There should be an official Mod Manager... For those of you who are familiar with the Fallout 3 modding community, i'm talking something like NMM....an application that actually manages your mods. Install/uninstall, Update, comparability checks, the works. And it should be integrated with a site that acts as an official repository for mods, like nexusmods is for the NMM. This would make using mods a hell of a lot simpler, and far less easy to screw up. Before you ask, yes, i know about the existence of CKAN, but from what i've read, it's lacking...
• Multiplayer. Now, i can already hear the wailing, and gnashing of teeth, at the idea of multiplayer in KSP.....but think about it. Haven't you ever wished you had another kerbal in the cockpit with you, to delegate tasks to? wouldn't it be great to have some help building your huge space station, or planetary base? Could be fun....especially with the ability for players to set up a dedicated/private server, and people could pop in and out, and contribute..
• Better soundtrack. It's not that i hate royalty-free music, or Kevin MacLeod...but it's not unique to the game. It would be better, i think, if all of the game's music was done in-house...or hire Kevin to do a soundtrack just for KSP.

I'm sure i'll come up with more, but i'd also love to hear what you guys think, and if you have anything to add...

Now, in case there's a thread like this already, i just want to say, i didn't see it (i did look), and while i did try to do a search, for whatever reason, the search tool on this forum isn't so good (doesn't work most of the time).

[Magzimum]

So...

• Bigger better KSC: Yes. I would love some upgrades. An East-west runway would be cool. A windtunnel would be awesome. And some test-tracks (with bumps and slopes) for rovers would be a lot of fun.
• Multiple usable KSP bases. Not as important as the upgrade above. Would be fun though, as long as the user interface does not get cluttered with too many options before launch.
• Career overhaul. Disagree. I like the career. It's unrealistic how you unlock new parts directly from doing science, but from a gameplay perspective this works. You got a budget. You need to achieve something. Then you unlock new stuff and you get new budget. Repeat. Maybe people who like the career are less noisy than those who dislike it?
• Controller / gamepad support. Don't care. I cannot ever see myself play a game on a small controller. I use nearly all the keys on my keyboard in KSP.
• Better mod integration. Sure, I think that's already high on Squad's list. The game was designed with mods in mind. That was not an afterthought. However, I am not sure you can compare Fallout to KSP. In terms of budget or history (Fallout runs since the 90s, right?) it is not the same.
• Multiplayer. Mixed feelings on this. I like the fact that you can play KSP while being offline, and alone. That should always be possible. If multiplayer becomes an optional extra, I'd be all for it, especially for cooperative missions. Dealing with warp may be a major problem though... and I am not gonna sit and do nothing in interplanetary space while someone else spends 30 minutes to complete some docking procedure.
• Soundtrack. Meh. I really could not care less. I play without sound. I don't have the house to myself, so every soundtrack would eventually drive other people nuts. But I hope that one day some nerd with the right connections can record high-quality actual sounds of related parts, and turn that into a mod which eventually becomes stock. As for the actual music, don't you have some music on your computer?

Yes, there are many threads like this. In fact, the entire Suggestions & Development Discussion forum exists to discuss stuff like this. I think that all points were discussed before. But we can always start a new thread! But because you put so many different points of discussion in this thread, this will probably become a very messy discussion...

[Numberyellow]

1 hour ago, Magzimum said:

So...

• Bigger better KSC: Yes. I would love some upgrades. An East-west runway would be cool. A windtunnel would be awesome. And some test-tracks (with bumps and slopes) for rovers would be a lot of fun.
• Multiple usable KSP bases. Not as important as the upgrade above. Would be fun though, as long as the user interface does not get cluttered with too many options before launch.
• Career overhaul. Disagree. I like the career. It's unrealistic how you unlock new parts directly from doing science, but from a gameplay perspective this works. You got a budget. You need to achieve something. Then you unlock new stuff and you get new budget. Repeat. Maybe people who like the career are less noisy than those who dislike it?
• Controller / gamepad support. Don't care. I cannot ever see myself play a game on a small controller. I use nearly all the keys on my keyboard in KSP.
• Better mod integration. Sure, I think that's already high on Squad's list. The game was designed with mods in mind. That was not an afterthought. However, I am not sure you can compare Fallout to KSP. In terms of budget or history (Fallout runs since the 90s, right?) it is not the same.
• Multiplayer. Mixed feelings on this. I like the fact that you can play KSP while being offline, and alone. That should always be possible. If multiplayer becomes an optional extra, I'd be all for it, especially for cooperative missions. Dealing with warp may be a major problem though... and I am not gonna sit and do nothing in interplanetary space while someone else spends 30 minutes to complete some docking procedure.
• Soundtrack. Meh. I really could not care less. I play without sound. I don't have the house to myself, so every soundtrack would eventually drive other people nuts. But I hope that one day some nerd with the right connections can record high-quality actual sounds of related parts, and turn that into a mod which eventually becomes stock. As for the actual music, don't you have some music on your computer?

Yes, there are many threads like this. In fact, the entire Suggestions & Development Discussion forum exists to discuss stuff like this. I think that all points were discussed before. But we can always start a new thread! But because you put so many different points of discussion in this thread, this will probably become a very messy discussion...

ok then..

• We have an east-west already, i want a north-south as well. I DO very much like the idea of a windtunnel, and a rover test area. I could see MANY uses for such things.
• I don't see where any options would be needed before launch. These bases could serve as alternate launch/landing locations.
• Noted.
• I use a lot of keys too.....but again, sometimes i want to just sit back, and fly...don't need a whole lot of keys for that.
• I didn't compare fallout to KSP. go read what i said again, I was talking about NMM, which is a mod manager for FO3.
• Oh, i'd only ever like to see MP as an optional thing.
• Yes, i have music on my computer, what does that have to do with anything?

Thank you for your input.

[Numberyellow]

119 views, and only one of you said something?

c'mon..surely, more of you have something to add.

[pandaman]

 

To quote @Magzimum ...(my bold)

'...Yes, there are many threads like this. In fact, the entire Suggestions & Development Discussion forum exists to discuss stuff like this. I think that all points were discussed before. But we can always start a new thread! But because you put so many different points of discussion in this thread, this will probably become a very messy discussion...'

@Numberyellow.  The problem you may have here is that most, if not all, of your suggestions are already covered in some detail elsewhere in their own (often quite long) threads, where it is just much easier to follow and contribute to the discussion for each topic.  

 I see you are fairly new to these forums, so a big 'Hello and welcome' to you, you will find this is a very friendly and helpful community.  I don't know if you have looked at the "suggestion and discussion' forum in any depth yet, but I recommend you do.  There are some fascinating discussions in there that cover yours and many other ideas.

Cheers.

[Numberyellow]

@pandaman Cool. Thanks for the welcome.

As i stated in my OP though, i tried searching for threads relevant to the points i laid out, but the search function appears to be somewhat broken...and i really don't have the time to to thumbing through hundreds of pages.

If nobody's going to participate though, i guess i'll just let the thread die.

[tseitsei89]

On 5.1.2017 at 11:08 AM, Numberyellow said:

Bigger, Better main KSC. I'd really love to see the runway we have now, be a little longer, a touch wider, and better/properly marked and lit. I'd also like to see multiple runways...we have a runway for east/west, why not another for north/south?

I dont see how this would have any significant impact on the gameplay. Maybe some nice eyecandy but nothing more and thus I dont really find it necessary...

On 5.1.2017 at 11:08 AM, Numberyellow said:

Multiple usable KSP bases. Now, i know about KSC 2, but it's kinda crap, let's face it. Why not have a few bases around Kerbin? Like proper bases, with proper runways, and facilities.

Again not really needed. The one we have now is at the equator which means that you can already launch to any orbit you want if you just time it properly. But could be fun to fly planes between bases or something... So again an OK idea but not necessary IMO

On 5.1.2017 at 11:08 AM, Numberyellow said:

• Career needs an overhaul. While i have not played career yet, i have read about it, and talked to players, and not many of you seem to think stock career is very good. Why not a story-based career? I've read that Squad, at one point had a basic lore developed for the game. I think they should take those ideas, and create a story, and then rework the career mode, to incorporate the story, along with suggestions from you folks, to enhance the gameplay experience. I mean, as is, is there actually any real goal in career? is there a point? What is the incentive to complete it?

Yes. Career mode needs an overhaul, but I'm not sure how to fix that... But as it currently stands it is something I will not play. Maybe this just is a sandbox game and there is really no good way to implement career mode... I dunno.

Maybe somekind of story could be good but the replayability value would be quite low...

The ideal would IMO be something like creating a new procedurally (is that the word I'm looking for? Sorry not a native speaker...) generated solar system for every new career (and leave the familiar system as a common ground for everyone to play and compete in sandbox). And then just only showing the basic orbital information about the planets at first. So you would actually have to send probes to the planets to take photos/map the planets to find out more about their size, composition, atmosphere and possible moons and stuff. That way it would be infinitely replayable and you would have the same "excitement" of discovering something new every time. The downside is that this is probably hard to implement and would take lots of time and money...

 

On 5.1.2017 at 11:08 AM, Numberyellow said:

ACTUAL controller/gamepad support. Sometimes, you just wanna kick back, and fly your creations. It would be really great if there was a controller menu, specifically for gamepads. I know you can assign controls through the keybindings, but they don't always work correctly, plus, it's a pain to do. For something like this, simplicity is key. You go to the menu, assign your controls, and then go fly....

Not needed. KSP is mostly a game where you use mouse and many buttons of the keyboard. And if you want to use a controller or a joystick or something it is currently possible even though it takes some configuration first.

 

On 5.1.2017 at 3:58 PM, Magzimum said:

Better mod integration. Sure, I think that's already high on Squad's list. The game was designed with mods in mind. That was not an afterthought. However, I am not sure you can compare Fallout to KSP. In terms of budget or history (Fallout runs since the 90s, right?) it is not the same.

Yes. Mods add so much new options if you get bored to the stock game. Squad really should try to make modding as easy as possible and inform people about the awesome modding community we have.

On 5.1.2017 at 11:08 AM, Numberyellow said:

Multiplayer. Now, i can already hear the wailing, and gnashing of teeth, at the idea of multiplayer in KSP.....but think about it. Haven't you ever wished you had another kerbal in the cockpit with you, to delegate tasks to? wouldn't it be great to have some help building your huge space station, or planetary base? Could be fun....especially with the ability for players to set up a dedicated/private server, and people could pop in and out, and contribute..

MP will never work because of timewarp. How can you keep all the players in the same timescale if one wants to fly Kerbin circumnavigation in real time and the other wants to do an interplanetary transfer to Jool system while third player is going to minmus and fourth to Moho?

 

On 5.1.2017 at 3:58 PM, Magzimum said:

Soundtrack. Meh. I really could not care less. I play without sound. I don't have the house to myself, so every soundtrack would eventually drive other people nuts. But I hope that one day some nerd with the right connections can record high-quality actual sounds of related parts, and turn that into a mod which eventually becomes stock. As for the actual music, don't you have some music on your computer?

I really really dont see the point of this no matter how hard I try. If you dont like or get bored to musics in ANY game you ever play, just turn them off and put your own favourite playlist on... No reason to throw time and money on this really...

 

These are my thoughts on the subjects

[Numberyellow]

@tseitsei89 Thanks for the input.

Two of the points you quoted were not mine, they were replies from someone else.

As to the rest: a North/South runway would not only be more realistic, but it would make it much easier to launch an aircraft-based mission. say you want to go to one of the poles. Right now, you need to launch, get up to speed/altitude, then change course, so you're heading magnetic north or south. If your plane is really big, or somewhat unstable, or both, that large course change is going to be a lot more difficult than it sounds. Not to mention the waste of time and fuel.

Alternate landing sites are never useless. We use them in real life. Additionally, they could be used for re-fueling for long-distance flights, or as launch points that may make a trip easier to pull off.

I would argue that proper controller support IS needed. I never did understand the purist "keyboard and mouse only" approach that a lot of PC gamers stand by. Video gaming has been a hobby of mine for 24 years, and i've used all sorts of control setups in that time....while K&M is great for most stuff, as i said, sometimes you just want to fly. I mean, even for test flights of craft i'm developing, i find it MUCH easier to just have the basic flight controls, and essentials (like SAS, RCS, Fine controls, abort, throttle, gear toggle, staging, and thruster controls) all in one, easy to use package. No action groups, no having to memorize the entire keybinding layout, no cramping my fingers. Some things are just easier, or more efficient to do with a controller.

The MP question is easy: Disable timewarp during coop play. If you're working alone, you can warp, but if one of your friends joins the space, it's disabled.

Music is as much a part of a game as the graphics, story, characters, gameplay, physics, or anything else..It helps create and maintain the atmosphere. Having to screw around with an external media player would not only break up the flow of what i'm doing, but it would also consume system resources, possibly impacting the performance of the game.

[Magzimum]

14 minutes ago, Numberyellow said:

The MP question is easy: Disable timewarp during coop play. If you're working alone, you can warp, but if one of your friends joins the space, it's disabled.

But missions to the Mun take a day in real time. Minmus several days. And all the missions to planets are counted in years? This way, multiplayer missions are limited to Kerbin, and then probably only to the surface directly around the KSC. 

Even if you plan to do stuff in LKO, you end up most of the time waiting for a node. One orbit is about 30 minutes, and you only need to do stuff for 1-2 minutes during that orbit - sometimes not even. 

[DualDesertEagle]

I totally agree on joystick / controller support. As someone who has flown real aircraft before I just CANNOT disagree. While a controller with analog sticks may not be realistic it still offers the ability to have zero ad full input plus everything inbetween. Also, I often fly in-atmosphere missions in time warp coz I have to fly over very long distances and everytime I have to do a correction I have to turn time warp back to 2x or even NORMAL to not have the plane spin out of control when I hit the "roll right" key, for example.

Flying with a joystick would allow me to give the controls a very slight input, maybe even slight enough to keep it up and eliminate the unwanted drift-off completely. Coz not even the trim function is accurate enough to get a plane that naturally pitches up VEEEEERY SLIGHTLY to fly perfectly sraight.

Also, co-op being mentioned above, yes that would work out even WITH time warp for the most part. In co-op all players involved would most likey do the same mission together, allowing the coordination of their ships in a way that they could all be in stable orbits before time warp is activated. Even with a part of the involved players going to another planet it would be possible, the time warp would simply stop as soon as the first of them reach their encounter. The others would then be somewhere in the middle of their transfer and could switch over to watch the 2nd ship circularize, de-orbit and land. Once that has happened the time warp could go on.

[tseitsei89]

52 minutes ago, Numberyellow said:

Two of the points you quoted were not mine, they were replies from someone else.

Sorry about that. I intended to quote them from OP as well but my brain didnt work

53 minutes ago, Numberyellow said:

As to the rest: a North/South runway would not only be more realistic, but it would make it much easier to launch an aircraft-based mission. say you want to go to one of the poles. Right now, you need to launch, get up to speed/altitude, then change course, so you're heading magnetic north or south. If your plane is really big, or somewhat unstable, or both, that large course change is going to be a lot more difficult than it sounds. Not to mention the waste of time and fuel.

It would be nice I guess but IMO if your plane can't do a 90 degree turn quite easily you should probably plan it better anyway  Also the fuel and time waste is quite minimal. But as I said I'm not against this idea but I dont consider it important either. There are much more important things for SQUAD to work on before this

56 minutes ago, Numberyellow said:

Alternate landing sites are never useless. We use them in real life. Additionally, they could be used for re-fueling for long-distance flights, or as launch points that may make a trip easier to pull off.

We use them in real life yes because landing in to a forest is bad but in KSP we can land pretty much anywhere safely already.

Refueling point is true but Kerbin is so small that the need for refueling stations is somewhat questionable IMO.

We already have a launchpoint at the optimal location, the equator, it is easy to launch to any given orbit from there.

But again I'm not against this idea but I dont consider it that important either. 

1 hour ago, Numberyellow said:

I would argue that proper controller support IS needed. I never did understand the purist "keyboard and mouse only" approach that a lot of PC gamers stand by. Video gaming has been a hobby of mine for 24 years, and i've used all sorts of control setups in that time....while K&M is great for most stuff, as i said, sometimes you just want to fly. I mean, even for test flights of craft i'm developing, i find it MUCH easier to just have the basic flight controls, and essentials (like SAS, RCS, Fine controls, abort, throttle, gear toggle, staging, and thruster controls) all in one, easy to use package. No action groups, no having to memorize the entire keybinding layout, no cramping my fingers. Some things are just easier, or more efficient to do with a controller.

Ok. I just don't ever see myself using gamepad/controller for KSP. Don't get me wrong I definitely use gamepad for other games but it just isn't that suitable for KSP IMO.

I have previously used a joystick to fly some of my bigger planes since it gives me more precise control  So I know that you already CAN use joystick with the game at least if you want to. I haven't tried with gamepad but that should also be possible...

It could be made easier yes but again not that important IMO. (Although I'd rather take this than more/better KSC bases)

1 hour ago, Numberyellow said:

The MP question is easy: Disable timewarp during coop play. If you're working alone, you can warp, but if one of your friends joins the space, it's disabled.

So you really couldn't do much in the multiplayer mode then? Every time you are in MP mode you cannot timewarp so you have to wait until everyone leaves and then you can timewarp again but then you are already playing single player game again since everybody else already left...

Quote

Music is as much a part of a game as the graphics, story, characters, gameplay, physics, or anything else..It helps create and maintain the atmosphere. Having to screw around with an external media player would not only break up the flow of what i'm doing, but it would also consume system resources, possibly impacting the performance of the game.

Ok then we just have to agree to disagree here. I usually listen to games soundtrack for some time when I first start playing it but in most of the games I have played longer I have already gotten bored of the same soundtrack and instead like to play my own music in the background. Especially in something I have played as much as I have played KSP.

[Hodari]

3 hours ago, tseitsei89 said:

But could be fun to fly planes between bases or something...

I think this would be the best reason to add multiple bases.  If nothing else, it would add a few more options for missions using early plane tech.  Right now, planes might be fun if you're into that sort of thing, but for practical purposes, they're almost useless until you get far enough into the tech tree to be able to do spaceplanes(at which point, you're almost done with the tree anyway).

[pandaman]

8 hours ago, Numberyellow said:

@pandaman Cool. Thanks for the welcome.

As i stated in my OP though, i tried searching for threads relevant to the points i laid out, but the search function appears to be somewhat broken...and i really don't have the time to to thumbing through hundreds of pages.

If nobody's going to participate though, i guess i'll just let the thread die.

  I havent used the search functions much myself, but you'll find that the 'popular' topics keep appearing near the top of the list anyway.  I tend to find scrolling through the first few pages picks up most commonly discussed things.

[regex]

To address one thing that I agree with: Career mode feels like a bunch of unrelated or "forced" features slapped together and called a "game". It's really not that good other than to provide arbitrary goals to people who don't want to set their own. It involves a lot of grind because you have to plan and fly every mission yourself, and the accumulation of funds, science, and reputation all rely on you flying each mission. There is no end goal except for completing the tech tree which basically implies starting over or playing a sort of sandbox mode (in which case why not just play sandbox mode...) Strategies are basically useless because of steep buy-in costs which results in a lack of usefulness when they could be critically important decisions (like when starting a new game). The tech tree is based more on introducing new players to the parts rather than a logical progression. Rather than the early game being relatively easy and having challenges ramp up as time goes by KSP has it inverted for new players; all of the challenge is at the beginning when there is no SAS and the buildings put harsh limits on the player. Kerbal "experience" and building unlocks feel very much like "forced" features, like someone asked "How can we make this meaningful?" instead of "Should we make this meaningful?"

Career mode, more than any other feature, needs to be tossed out the window and rethought completely. Yes, it does work, especially within the framework of a sandbox experience, but it is ultimately disjointed, unsatisfying, and monotonous.

As said, literally novels have been written about how it could be better.

Edited January 8, 2017 by regex

[HebaruSan]

15 hours ago, Numberyellow said:

119 views, and only one of you said something?

c'mon..surely, more of you have something to add.

Be careful what you wish for...

On 1/5/2017 at 3:08 AM, Numberyellow said:

• Bigger, Better main KSC. I'd really love to see the runway we have now, be a little longer, a touch wider, and better/properly marked and lit. I'd also like to see multiple runways...we have a runway for east/west, why not another for north/south?

I don't think this would improve the game. The purpose of KSC is to give you a place to start your missions. It satisfies that purpose well. The runway is long and wide enough as it is, and if you need to go north, it's easy to turn after take-off. And two runways would take up an inordinate proportion of the surface area of KSC. When considering the development costs that go along with something like this (making the new models, modifying old models to fit, a menu to pick which runway you want, applying textures, playtesting, revising the models, etc.), I would prefer if SQUAD never worked on this.

The one thing I'd agree with is marking/lighting the runway. It would be a nice bit of polish if players could find their way back without doing dummy missions to place flags around KSC.

On 1/5/2017 at 3:08 AM, Numberyellow said:

• Multiple usable KSP bases. Now, i know about KSC 2, but it's kinda crap, let's face it. Why not have a few bases around Kerbin? Like proper bases, with proper runways, and facilities.

Similarly, I also don't think this would improve the game. It would add complexity (at the very least a new popup to pick your launch site, if not a whole suite of mechanics to "unlock" or switch to other sites), but with no benefit. Launching from another site would be the same gameplay as launching from KSC, with the possible exception of limits to the orbital plane you can achieve. KSC 2 is a novelty/museum piece for players who remember very old versions of the game. And the entire surface of Kerbin is already a functional alternate landing site.

On 1/5/2017 at 3:08 AM, Numberyellow said:

• Career needs an overhaul. While i have not played career yet, i have read about it, and talked to players, and not many of you seem to think stock career is very good. Why not a story-based career? I've read that Squad, at one point had a basic lore developed for the game. I think they should take those ideas, and create a story, and then rework the career mode, to incorporate the story, along with suggestions from you folks, to enhance the gameplay experience. I mean, as is, is there actually any real goal in career? is there a point? What is the incentive to complete it?

(Emphasis added.) You should play career mode and form your own judgments of it and share them with us. Reflecting our prior complaints back to us isn't going to lead us anywhere we haven't already been. I have criticisms of career, but I've already detailed them elsewhere, and they're mostly in line with everyone else's.

On 1/5/2017 at 3:08 AM, Numberyellow said:

• ACTUAL controller/gamepad support. Sometimes, you just wanna kick back, and fly your creations. It would be really great if there was a controller menu, specifically for gamepads. I know you can assign controls through the keybindings, but they don't always work correctly, plus, it's a pain to do. For something like this, simplicity is key. You go to the menu, assign your controls, and then go fly....

I find the current gamepad support adequate; all I really want to do with it is yaw, pitch, roll, and adjust throttle. But maybe you'll get lucky and some of the new console port code can be backported to PC. If it makes the game more playable for more people, then that sounds good to me.

On 1/5/2017 at 3:08 AM, Numberyellow said:

• Better MOD support/implementation/integration. There should be an official Mod Manager... For those of you who are familiar with the Fallout 3 modding community, i'm talking something like NMM....an application that actually manages your mods. Install/uninstall, Update, comparability checks, the works. And it should be integrated with a site that acts as an official repository for mods, like nexusmods is for the NMM. This would make using mods a hell of a lot simpler, and far less easy to screw up. Before you ask, yes, i know about the existence of CKAN, but from what i've read, it's lacking...

(Emphasis added.) You should try CKAN and form your own judgments of it and share them with us. It's pretty effective within the limitations of what can be done with the architecture created by SQUAD. Specifically, the problems of what to do with empty directories and autogenerated cfg files when uninstalling is not something CKAN created or can reasonably be expected to solve. I'd love for SQUAD to address that somehow, but I think KSP's modding support is already pretty amazing and good enough to have spawned a universe of free third party content.

Compatibility checks, at least the kind that CKAN doesn't already solve, aren't a problem of mod management, they're a problem of API stability between versions. No modder or mod manager can predict whether a released version of any mod will be compatible with the next release of KSP. That's one thing I'd like: SQUAD should officially commit to backwards compatibility from some version onwards (probably should have been 1.0.0, but better late than never). Or at least within major versions, so X.Y.N would always be compatible with X.Y.N+1. That way mods would stop breaking with every minor update, and mod managers could use that guarantee to predict more reliably when compatibility really ends.

On 1/5/2017 at 3:08 AM, Numberyellow said:

• Multiplayer. Now, i can already hear the wailing, and gnashing of teeth, at the idea of multiplayer in KSP.....but think about it. Haven't you ever wished you had another kerbal in the cockpit with you, to delegate tasks to? wouldn't it be great to have some help building your huge space station, or planetary base? Could be fun....especially with the ability for players to set up a dedicated/private server, and people could pop in and out, and contribute..

I agree multiplayer could be quite fun if all of the hard problems around time warp were solved. (No, just turning it off doesn't work, because that effectively segregates the interplanetary gameplay as singleplayer-only.) I made a comment at one point about turning career mode into almost a board game using procedural planets, fog of war, and data/science/astronomy/resource trading; so you could send probes and sell what you learn to other players, or you could skip probes and just buy the data you need to set up mining or farming bases, etc. Add in Civ-style victory conditions like "science victory," "colonization victory," "exploration victory," etc., and I think there's a huge potential for a true game to develop along those lines.

That's really a "KSP 2.0"-scope project, though, and if they just took the KSP status quo and let us log in to servers, I personally wouldn't find it all that appealing.

On 1/5/2017 at 3:08 AM, Numberyellow said:

• Better soundtrack. It's not that i hate royalty-free music, or Kevin MacLeod...but it's not unique to the game. It would be better, i think, if all of the game's music was done in-house...or hire Kevin to do a soundtrack just for KSP.

I don't think there's a snowball's chance in Sheol of this happening. Anytime a Youtuber uses one of the KSP songs, the comments explode with "So many rockets have been designed to this" and "Isn't that music from KSP?" It's well beloved and solidly ensconced in the subculture. SQUAD stands to gain nothing by paying an artist to make new audio assets, and they haven't shown a propensity to make such expenditures.

[Enceos]

@HebaruSan If I had the steering wheel the new runway would appear in a week with remodelled buildings to fit. Not a big deal actually. We were discussing why the second runway would serve the game well before:

• The Multiplayer feature of timewarp can be implemented with a popup message "Player X wants to warp timpe forward for ## days/hours/minutes". If everyone agrees - the timewarp happens.
• I believe some stuff for better controller/gamepad support will be adapted from the new console version of KSP after it's made by Blitworks.
• Yep, the career mode needs more stuff. Some economy and management from strategy games wouldn't hurt. And there's an option to make tech research work like it does in Stellaris, that would be fun.

Edited January 12, 2017 by Enceos

[HebaruSan]

6 hours ago, Enceos said:

We were discussing why the second runway would serve the game well before:

That thread also contains a number of arguments for leaving it as-is, not least that it makes the OP's very unusual designs more challenging to design and fly, and challenge is fun. I can't help but notice that the OP of that thread states that he purposely seeks out the edge cases of the game; if the runway was extended, that edge wouldn't disappear, it would just move, and he would likely shift to even more atypical projects.

6 hours ago, Enceos said:

• The Multiplayer feature of timewarp can be implemented with a popup message "Player X wants to warp timpe forward for ## days/hours/minutes". If everyone agrees - the timewarp happens.

Say you've just burned for Jool and want to warp ahead a year and a half. But I'm in the middle of a descent to the Mun. I'm trying to watch the altitude and nav ball and fine tune my throttle, and suddenly a message pops up in my face. That's a terrible user experience.

But somehow I manage not to rage out and land safely. Do I click Yes to warp? Of course not; I have to send my dudes out for surface samples and other tasks first. Then it's back to orbit, and either refueling for another landing or my Kerbin return trip. Meanwhile you're sitting there waiting; in an ideal case you've alt-tabbed out to do something else, but maybe you get impatient and start spamming the chat with complaints. And when I finally finish re-entry and recovery, do I actually feel like warping that far ahead at that point, or do I want to do more shorter missions first?

I'm mad because you disrupted my mission at a critical point with a popup message, and you're mad because I won't let you continue playing. These actually are hard problems that need careful thought to solve.

[DualDesertEagle]

1 hour ago, HebaruSan said:

Say you've just burned for Jool and want to warp ahead a year and a half. But I'm in the middle of a descent to the Mun. I'm trying to watch the altitude and nav ball and fine tune my throttle, and suddenly a message pops up in my face. That's a terrible user experience.

But somehow I manage not to rage out and land safely. Do I click Yes to warp? Of course not; I have to send my dudes out for surface samples and other tasks first. Then it's back to orbit, and either refueling for another landing or my Kerbin return trip. Meanwhile you're sitting there waiting; in an ideal case you've alt-tabbed out to do something else, but maybe you get impatient and start spamming the chat with complaints. And when I finally finish re-entry and recovery, do I actually feel like warping that far ahead at that point, or do I want to do more shorter missions first?

I'm mad because you disrupted my mission at a critical point with a popup message, and you're mad because I won't let you continue playing. These actually are hard problems that need careful thought to solve.

Hence my suggestion to only have co-op instead of full multiplayer. In co-op there would be much less people playing much less missions, most of the time probably even all players on the same mission.

 

And like I said, if some players have a different destination than the rest, the first encounter stops the warp. If they wish to do so, the players who are in the middle of their transfer can watch the others do their thing until they've landed. And honestly, in a game were time doesn't matter when u've landed ur ship and still have the kerbals inside, why not let the players on the other ship finish their warp, then they can get to their encounter aswell and once they've reached their destination they don't really need to warp anymore anyway. So those who have already landed half a year ago in game time but maybe 5 minutes ago in real time can now leave the ship and start their science stuff while the others land their ship on whatever body they've flown to.

[Atubara]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7se1Lc0vwwmMmpYZjhJbXpBTkk/view?usp=sharing

Hopefully this loads correctly. I'm trying to compose some 'homebrew' tunes for me to jam out to for each individual planet. What I'm trying to do is to crank out a unique theme for each planet, because the two (maybe three?) themes that play anywhere outside of Kerbin's atmosphere gets kinda boring. The themes have to be long, memorable, and nontiresome to the player, which poses a cool challenge on me since I'm still learning. 

The link should be an MP3. I just had a creative streak and made that song in about two hours or so. Still a huge work in progress. I might end up cutting up the song and making more themes for less work, but it seems less sentimental. It would be cool to get a specific theme for each planet's SOI, excluding moons. Jool could sport some cool brass sections and Eve could have an orchestral chamber band. Anyone have any ideas? I'm not doing this to propose to SQUAD or anything significant. I just want some tunes to jive to while playing KSP for myself, and anyone else that wants to listen to it.

The main challenge for me is that the only composition tool I have is Musescore. So no access to wub-wubs or mix tracks.

Edited January 10, 2017 by Atubara
Forgot to add my restrictions.

[Numberyellow]

On 1/8/2017 at 9:36 AM, tseitsei89 said:

Sorry about that. I intended to quote them from OP as well but my brain didnt work

It would be nice I guess but IMO if your plane can't do a 90 degree turn quite easily you should probably plan it better anyway  Also the fuel and time waste is quite minimal. But as I said I'm not against this idea but I dont consider it important either. There are much more important things for SQUAD to work on before this

We use them in real life yes because landing in to a forest is bad but in KSP we can land pretty much anywhere safely already.

Refueling point is true but Kerbin is so small that the need for refueling stations is somewhat questionable IMO.

We already have a launchpoint at the optimal location, the equator, it is easy to launch to any given orbit from there.

But again I'm not against this idea but I dont consider it that important either. 

Ok. I just don't ever see myself using gamepad/controller for KSP. Don't get me wrong I definitely use gamepad for other games but it just isn't that suitable for KSP IMO.

I have previously used a joystick to fly some of my bigger planes since it gives me more precise control  So I know that you already CAN use joystick with the game at least if you want to. I haven't tried with gamepad but that should also be possible...

It could be made easier yes but again not that important IMO. (Although I'd rather take this than more/better KSC bases)

So you really couldn't do much in the multiplayer mode then? Every time you are in MP mode you cannot timewarp so you have to wait until everyone leaves and then you can timewarp again but then you are already playing single player game again since everybody else already left...

Ok then we just have to agree to disagree here. I usually listen to games soundtrack for some time when I first start playing it but in most of the games I have played longer I have already gotten bored of the same soundtrack and instead like to play my own music in the background. Especially in something I have played as much as I have played KSP.

I agree, it's not a major deal, and there are a number of things that are higher priority. However, sometimes, difficulty with the turn isn't a matter of the plane not being properly planned...sometimes, it's a matter of not being able to achieve sufficient speed for a sustained turn, due to it being a fully-loaded transport craft. Conventional wisdom would suggest "just put more engines on it", however, that burns MORE fuel, and is also added weight, which, in some cases, will LOWER the aircraft's performance/range. There are, of course, ways around this, but they're annoying. Being able to take off in a north/south orientation would make things much easier.

Yes, but we can't refuel anywhere.

Again...fully loaded transport, operating at full throttle all the time...that's going to burn up a lot of fuel.

Agreed, but i'm not talking about orbits. I'm talking about atmospheric operations.

I guess we'll hafta agree to disagree, with regards to controllers. I use mine ALL THE TIME, for flight testing...it's has enough buttons for basic flight controls. I can map pretty much anything to the controller, but there seems to be a problem. When i assign the left and right thumbstick "buttons" to something, the game accepts it, but then when i use the buttons, they don't do what they're mapped to do.

The point of this multiplayer would be private games.....groups of people playing the same game, working toward the same goal. 

ok

On 1/8/2017 at 3:34 PM, pandaman said:

  I havent used the search functions much myself, but you'll find that the 'popular' topics keep appearing near the top of the list anyway.  I tend to find scrolling through the first few pages picks up most commonly discussed things.

Search is terrible. for most things, it will just return a blank screen. Rarely, have i had it actually work correctly.

[Numberyellow]

On 1/8/2017 at 6:59 PM, HebaruSan said:

Be careful what you wish for...

I always am.

 

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I don't think this would improve the game. The purpose of KSC is to give you a place to start your missions. It satisfies that purpose well. The runway is long and wide enough as it is, and if you need to go north, it's easy to turn after take-off. And two runways would take up an inordinate proportion of the surface area of KSC. When considering the development costs that go along with something like this (making the new models, modifying old models to fit, a menu to pick which runway you want, applying textures, playtesting, revising the models, etc.), I would prefer if SQUAD never worked on this.

For heavier designs, it is NOT long enough, or quite wide enough. And sometimes, for whatever reason, some planes will drift, ever so slightly, to the left or right, after a certain amount of speed have been built up. If you're not VERY careful with corrections, you can easily roll the plane, and destroy it, OR impact one of the lights at the end of the runway, and destroy your plane.

As i've said before, sometimes, it's not "easy" to just do a turn to align north or south.

 

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The one thing I'd agree with is marking/lighting the runway. It would be a nice bit of polish if players could find their way back without doing dummy missions to place flags around KSC.

Glad we agree on something...i do hate doing missions to plant flags for navigation, lol.

 

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Similarly, I also don't think this would improve the game. It would add complexity (at the very least a new popup to pick your launch site, if not a whole suite of mechanics to "unlock" or switch to other sites), but with no benefit. Launching from another site would be the same gameplay as launching from KSC, with the possible exception of limits to the orbital plane you can achieve. KSC 2 is a novelty/museum piece for players who remember very old versions of the game. And the entire surface of Kerbin is already a functional alternate landing site.

The point wouldn't be, necessarily, to use them as alternate launch sites (though, that would be a valid use). They would mainly serve as alternate landing sites, and refueling bases for in-atmosphere operations. I'm sure the devs could find more uses for them, but that's how i would envision them being used.

 

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(Emphasis added.) You should play career mode and form your own judgments of it and share them with us. Reflecting our prior complaints back to us isn't going to lead us anywhere we haven't already been. I have criticisms of career, but I've already detailed them elsewhere, and they're mostly in line with everyone else's.

I play games, primarily, for their stories. My other big draw to games might be if they're open-world, and lend themselves to exploration, OR if they're sandbox-type games, that lend themselves to exploration. The sandbox mode of KSP aligns more to the latter. I like building things, i like exploring, i like things that explode, and i like things that make you think. KSP has all of these. I described KSP to another member here as being "the greatest virtual lego set EVER"....though some might argue that other games like "Space Engineers", or "Starmade" might be more deserving of that title, i disagree...KSP has just the right amount of complexity, low-barrier of entry, and mod support, where it's the best, in my book.

That being said, there is no story in the career mode...no goal, no point to playing....so i have not bothered.

If they were to make the career worth playing, to people like me, i would absolutely give it a shot.

 

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I find the current gamepad support adequate; all I really want to do with it is yaw, pitch, roll, and adjust throttle. But maybe you'll get lucky and some of the new console port code can be backported to PC. If it makes the game more playable for more people, then that sounds good to me.

As i said to another person here: it works, but it's not perfect. Mapped buttons not working and all that....not to mention unless you have the controller turned on when you start the game, it will never recognize that you have one, and you'll need to restart the game, to get it to work.

 

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(Emphasis added.) You should try CKAN and form your own judgments of it and share them with us. It's pretty effective within the limitations of what can be done with the architecture created by SQUAD. Specifically, the problems of what to do with empty directories and autogenerated cfg files when uninstalling is not something CKAN created or can reasonably be expected to solve. I'd love for SQUAD to address that somehow, but I think KSP's modding support is already pretty amazing and good enough to have spawned a universe of free third party content.

EVERYTHING i've read, shows me that CKAN doesn't do what i'd expect a mod manager to do, and that it's more trouble than it's worth. Toss in that not every mod is compatible with it, and you have a recipe for frustration...i play games to DE-stress...to be entertained...not to be aggravated. 

 

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Compatibility checks, at least the kind that CKAN doesn't already solve, aren't a problem of mod management, they're a problem of API stability between versions. No modder or mod manager can predict whether a released version of any mod will be compatible with the next release of KSP. That's one thing I'd like: SQUAD should officially commit to backwards compatibility from some version onwards (probably should have been 1.0.0, but better late than never). Or at least within major versions, so X.Y.N would always be compatible with X.Y.N+1. That way mods would stop breaking with every minor update, and mod managers could use that guarantee to predict more reliably when compatibility really ends.

I was referring to compatibility checks between mods...to tell you if a mod has an operational conflict with another mod. The FO3 mod manager i mentioned in my OP, is able to do that.

 

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I agree multiplayer could be quite fun if all of the hard problems around time warp were solved. (No, just turning it off doesn't work, because that effectively segregates the interplanetary gameplay as singleplayer-only.) I made a comment at one point about turning career mode into almost a board game using procedural planets, fog of war, and data/science/astronomy/resource trading; so you could send probes and sell what you learn to other players, or you could skip probes and just buy the data you need to set up mining or farming bases, etc. Add in Civ-style victory conditions like "science victory," "colonization victory," "exploration victory," etc., and I think there's a huge potential for a true game to develop along those lines.

That's really a "KSP 2.0"-scope project, though, and if they just took the KSP status quo and let us log in to servers, I personally wouldn't find it all that appealing.

No it doesn't segregate interplanetary gameplay as SP-only...the setup i'm imagining is more of a co-op arrangement...i say multiplayer, because it is multiple players, operating in the same virtual space. It would be to allow you, and a group of your friends, to do things in the game together...like fly a complicated plane (co-pilot could handle certain tasks, while you focus on keeping her in the air), or build space stations, or bases on planets...or even exploratory missions..

And don't take this the wrong way, but that career idea sounds positively dreadful, and totally not in line with what KSP is.

 

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I don't think there's a snowball's chance in Sheol of this happening. Anytime a Youtuber uses one of the KSP songs, the comments explode with "So many rockets have been designed to this" and "Isn't that music from KSP?" It's well beloved and solidly ensconced in the subculture. SQUAD stands to gain nothing by paying an artist to make new audio assets, and they haven't shown a propensity to make such expenditures.

Which is a shame....EVERY game (even the crappy ones) deserves it's own soundtrack. As i said earlier, the soundtrack is part of the game's atmosphere. Of course, my opinion on this could be borne heavily out of my being a musicophile.

On 1/9/2017 at 4:47 PM, HebaruSan said:

Say you've just burned for Jool and want to warp ahead a year and a half. But I'm in the middle of a descent to the Mun. I'm trying to watch the altitude and nav ball and fine tune my throttle, and suddenly a message pops up in my face. That's a terrible user experience.

But somehow I manage not to rage out and land safely. Do I click Yes to warp? Of course not; I have to send my dudes out for surface samples and other tasks first. Then it's back to orbit, and either refueling for another landing or my Kerbin return trip. Meanwhile you're sitting there waiting; in an ideal case you've alt-tabbed out to do something else, but maybe you get impatient and start spamming the chat with complaints. And when I finally finish re-entry and recovery, do I actually feel like warping that far ahead at that point, or do I want to do more shorter missions first?

I'm mad because you disrupted my mission at a critical point with a popup message, and you're mad because I won't let you continue playing. These actually are hard problems that need careful thought to solve.

And i'd be mad, because you're dinking around with the mun, instead of being on the transport for Jool.

What would be the point of having people doing different missions in the same space?

[Magzimum]

What I am missing in this thread, at least from the opening poster ( @Numberyellow ), is a remark that acknowledges the fact that SQUAD has to make choices. They are a relatively small IT company (compared to the company that develops e.g. Fallout). Because of such choices, certain issues that are indeed a good idea will be postponed (possibly indefinitely). All ideas presented by the OP are indeed good ideas (except multiplayer and career on which I disagree). But none of the items would be at the top of my priority list. My priority list contains (1) Bug fixes (the seams on the planets, especially), (2) Mk2 LF-tanks (for spacecraft), (3) stock life support and (4) a new gas giant. And I know that a lot of people would disagree with my list too...

Having said that, back to the topic of this thread.

How much programming time would it take a professional programmer (i.e. SQUAD) to add a 2nd runway at a 90 degree angle to the current one? It may not be essential for the game, but if it can be done in a short time, it sure looks nice:

Figure 1, LaGuardia Airport in NY. It looks like they have a KSC (LGSC?) too, with a few SPHs...

I am however uncertain whether it's worth the trouble to create a menu option before launch to select the North-South or East-West runway. For those few times that you want north-south you can taxi to it yourself.

 

[Numberyellow]

5 minutes ago, Magzimum said:

What I am missing in this thread, at least from the opening poster ( @Numberyellow ), is a remark that acknowledges the fact that SQUAD has to make choices. They are a relatively small IT company (compared to the company that develops e.g. Fallout). Because of such choices, certain issues that are indeed a good idea will be postponed (possibly indefinitely). All ideas presented by the OP are indeed good ideas (except multiplayer and career on which I disagree). But none of the items would be at the top of my priority list. My priority list contains (1) Bug fixes (the seams on the planets, especially), (2) Mk2 LF-tanks (for spacecraft), (3) stock life support and (4) a new gas giant. And I know that a lot of people would disagree with my list too...

Having said that, back to the topic of this thread.

How much programming time would it take a professional programmer (i.e. SQUAD) to add a 2nd runway at a 90 degree angle to the current one? It may not be essential for the game, but if it can be done in a short time, it sure looks nice:

Figure 1, LaGuardia Airport in NY. It looks like they have a KSC (LGSC?) too, with a few SPHs...

I am however uncertain whether it's worth the trouble to create a menu option before launch to select the North-South or East-West runway. For those few times that you want north-south you can taxi to it yourself.

 

Mate, OF COURSE they have choices...

This isn't a list of things that i DEMAND they do RIGHT NOW, OR ELSE™...it's just a list of things i would like to see, because i think they'd either be cool, or be useful to me.

Adding the runway, and an option to launch off it, wouldn't be a big deal...hell, i'm sure there are people here who could do it.

And that's why the modding community here is not only great, but full of opportunity. Someone here mods it in, it looks and works well, and then if SQUAD likes it, they adopt it, and make it stock.

[Enceos]

The "Player X wants to warp time forward" message is for players who are in the same scene, it can comfortably accomodate the right side of the screen instead of popping right in the middle.

For players who are currently in different scenes the time will split into several dimensions during time warp:

If PLAYER 1 wants to meet PLAYER 2, he will need to warp forward to sync the timeframe. Same with PLAYERs 1 and 2 if they want to meet PLAYER 3 who warped time quite forward. Of course it will require a new comprehensive GUI tab where players can see each other's timeframes and can sync with a click of a button.

Tagging you @regex since you're quite a critical thinker.

P.S. @HebaruSan I didn't find any arguments against the second runway, would you cite please?

Edited April 22, 2017 by Enceos

[Magzimum]

1 hour ago, Enceos said:

If PLAYER 1 wants to meet PLAYER 2, he will need to warp forward to sync the timeframe. Same with PLAYERs 1 and 2 if they want to meet PLAYER 3 who warped time quite forward. Of course it will require a new comprehensive GUI tab where players can see each other's timeframes and can sync with a click of a button.

Other games made such a thing work too (Civilization had a multiplayer where you did not have to wait for the other player to finish his/her turn). However, let's do an exercise to see if this could work, let me present one scenario that you may have to be able to deal with.

Scenario:

 

Player 1 sends a mining rig to Minmus and starts mining on Y3, D1. He warps ahead to wait until the tanks are full, and on Y3, D5 he docks his SSTO and refills the tanks, then flies home for celebrations and medals.

Player 2 is playing on Y3, D1 too. He has a ship in high Mun orbit. And as unlikely as it seems, he managed to accelerate his ship so much that he gets to the Minmus site on Y3 D3. After player 1 has left Minmus in real time, he crashes his drone ship into the mining colony on Y3, D3, and completely destroys it.

What will player 1 experience? I see a few options, such as:

• keep going, and screw it that he's flying on Paradox Industries LFO ™
• revert back to Y3, D3 to the moment the conflict arose
• revert back to the earliest launch of all relevant ships that are somehow affected

My problem is that none of these sound very attractive.