KSP Making History

[Cydonian Monk]

Question: Aside from the new parts, how much of this expansion is already present in KerbalEDU? 

[Lupi]

Just now, tater said:

I tend to put "mission" in the context of career play... so it's just a "scenario" editor?

We don't know for sure, that's largely speculation on my part. If it was career mode stuff, they would've come out and said "contract"
the refrain from using that term makes me believe it is something else, and an overhaul of the main menu scenario thing is the only thing I could apply what they said to sensibly in my world of speculations

[sal_vager]

Just now, Cydonian Monk said:

Question: Aside from the new parts, how much of this expansion is already present in KerbalEDU? 

None, this uses nothing from EDU.

[danfarnsy]

Sounds like fun. 

I bought the game prior to April 2013. Any way I can still pay for the expansion?  

[Lupi]

9 minutes ago, danfarnsy said:

Sounds like fun. 

I bought the game prior to April 2013. Any way I can still pay for the expansion?  

buy it as a gift for someone?

[Shadowmage]

15 minutes ago, tater said:

To the extent the DLC and base game are compatible seems to make sense anyway, as DLC adds to the base game, which continues updates, so the base game will be compatible, anyway. I'd think that aside from specifically hooking stuff to features of the DLC, any mod should be able to work with or without the DLC installed, for example. It would be a major headache for modders to have to support divergent versions.

This is one of my biggest worries -- having done modding for other DLC-enabled games in past, most were made massively more complex by the versioning and DRM.  The only way it works well (from a code-side modding perspective) is if all of the code-side components for the DLC are built into the base game (so they can be referenced/compiled against), and the additional code only activated/turned on when the DLC is 'installed'; this makes the presence or absence of the expansion transparent to the mod-code, merely having to poll a boolean flag to determine if 'expansion-only' code needs to be run.

@JPLRepo  Any chances of hints as to how some of this will be handled --  Will mods need to be compiled against the base game, with a separate version for the 'expansion-enabled' game, or will there still be a single set of KSP libraries?  Will there be any DRM that will interfere with modding of either the base game or the expansion?

 

22 minutes ago, tater said:

2. All rocket parts that overlap with stock right now. If the tanks get a reboot to look decent, and decouplers, engines, etc, then stock needs this, since fixing the rocket parts has been promised for a while.

This is my second concern / point of objection as well.  Why scrap the 'rocket part revamp', and then move a few months later to release an expansion with new rocket parts?  Smells a bit fishy to me.

[_Augustus_]

There is literally nothing that DLC can do that config editing and mods can't. We have a mod that can ADD OTHER PLANETS.....

If this is the ONLY paid DLC, I'll buy it. I am happy to pay for a single expansion that adds in some stuff that I would like in the base game and supports SQUAD, but if it just turns into a money-grab full of things that mods provide for free, I am quitting KSP. My money has better things to go to than to completely virtual stuff I can get for free in the form of a mod.

KSP really has helped to shape my life. It made me become a spaceflight enthusiast, which inspired me to become an amateur astronomer, which ultimately resulted in starting my own telescope-servicing company. I would hate to see this amazing game that shaped my future become a pure EA-like cash grab.

Edited March 17, 2017 by _Augustus_

[Frozen_Heart]

34 minutes ago, cantab said:

And for a free DLC, aka "official mod", that's acceptable. For a paid DLC it would be less so. Imagine KSP 1.4 and Making History DLC release together, you get them. Then KSP 1.5 comes out and it's stated that several of the parts in the Making History DLC are not compatible with KSP 1.5 and will not be shown in it, and Squad say they won't fix those parts until a future KSP release.

I for one would be pretty dang peed off about that.

That isn't going to happen though as it would just be stupid for squad to do.

[Lupi]

2 minutes ago, Frozen_Heart said:

That isn't going to happen though as it would just be stupid for squad to do.

It's what happened to asteroid day; having asteroid day installed in some versions of the game before they fixed it caused it to break your saves, until they updated it. 

[Ten Key]

Will this expansion be available for console versions of the game?

[skygunner58203]

So, I purchased this on Steam in April of 2013. @SQUAD Does this mean I actually get the DLC free or need to pay for it?  I don't care either way, but I'm hoping for April being included in that range.

[Stone Blue]

IF Squad offers this free to anyone who bought KSP prior to April 2013, and if it's possible to do, for you "old timers" who get the expansion free, and still wouldnt mind paying up for it, why not ask your favorite mod dev if you could buy it FOR them?
That way you would be killing, uh, SUPPORTING, two birds with one stone, as the saying goes...

[Rainbowd4sh]

2 hours ago, Frozen_Heart said:

There is pretty much nothing that hasn't been done by mods.

 

The good thing about official updates and dlc is that they are pretty much guaranteed to last and be supported as long as the game is. Mods have a habit of just dying regularly.

Very true, and I agree 100%, but that still doesn't change the fact that atm, I could probably get the same exact thing for free. I already bought the game twice (Long story, lost accounts, and stolen emails), so I don't really feel like it's necessary to pay for this. I just hope they don't decide to do this for all future updates, turning it into a triple a game with payed expansions when it is far from that. I could understand a special type of kerbal, or even flag pack, or even just a mission pack. Adding parts and features though means that future updates may only be supported by people who pay more money. If Squad is hungry for money, increase the price of KSP itself to closer to 50 dollars. People are still buying it regularlly based off what I see, so that'd make more money than a pointless payed expansion.  

[Ant432]

It's amazing how the KSP community is both kind and entitled at the same time. People complain features in this Expansion are avaible in mods while crying about how clouds aren't in stock yet, despite them being avaiable in a mod. 

Are you all overlooking that unlike mods, the DLC won't become obsolete upon upgrading to a new version? 

[Rainbowd4sh]

2 minutes ago, Antonio432 said:

It's amazing how the KSP community is both kind and entitled at the same time. People complain features in this Expansion are avaible in mods while crying about how clouds aren't in stock yet, despite them being avaiable in a mod. 

Are you all overlooking that unlike mods, the DLC won't become obsolete upon upgrading to a new version? 

I'd wait a few weeks for the fantastic modders to update it, instead of coughing up 5 bucks. Look, like I said, if it wasn't something that limited future updates, it would be neat. Parts and features though do limit people who don't pay for it in future updates. Also, people who complain about this or that being in the game are being really silly considering that you can get virtually anything in a mod, or just take a week and learn how to script parts. It honestly isn't too difficult and I can't code at all. 

Edited March 17, 2017 by Rainbowd4sh

[Ant432]

1 minute ago, Rainbowd4sh said:

I'd wait a few weeks for the fantastic modders to update it, instead of coughing up 5 bucks. Look, like I said, if it wasn't something that limited future updates, it would be neat. Parts and features though do limit people who don't pay for it in future updates. 

Yes, just like I have waited a few weeks for amazing mods that never updated.

[Kerbart]

1 hour ago, Hotaru said:

(...)

(That said, I do think including Kerbal parachutes in a paid DLC is a bit cheesy. Those should go into the stock game. New parts are one thing, but people shouldn't have to pay extra for their Kerbals to survive crashes.)

(...)

That's a good point. Especially if it comes with a “bug fix: Kerbal falling from great heights will no longer incorrectly bounce, but rather disintegrate on impact”

The correct way would be “Kerbals can safely disembark from any height, but expansion pack #1 will actually add a parachute animation”

[tater]

30 minutes ago, _Augustus_ said:

There is literally nothing that DLC can do that config editing and mods can't. We have a mod that can ADD OTHER PLANETS.....

If this is the ONLY paid DLC, I'll buy it. I am happy to pay for a single expansion that adds in some stuff that I would like in the base game and supports SQUAD, but if it just turns into a money-grab full of things that mods provide for free, I am quitting KSP. My money has better things to go to than to completely virtual stuff I can get for free in the form of a mod.

KSP really has helped to shape my life. It made me become a spaceflight enthusiast, which inspired me to become an amateur astronomer, which ultimately resulted in starting my own telescope-servicing company. I would hate to see this amazing game that shaped my future become a pure EA-like cash grab.

To be fair, modders tend to make things that they want to play with (and we all benefit greatly from that!), but the company needs to make a living. I'm all behind a "money grab." KSP is and was cheap, and I don't expect any add-on to be expensive. Having to pony up what for me might about to $5-10/year for many hours of entertainment is incredible value. My DirecTV  bill is like $100 a _month_ and I play KSP as much as I ever watch TV.

Being concerned about how divergent versions will affect the ability to play with mods is a legitimate concern given the added value of mods (something Squad has certainly endorsed, as it's a real selling point of the game).Being concerned about having to spend $20? How much gasoline does that buy where people are from? With my truck, that's about 200km of driving (see, we 'muricans can change units). I drive that much in a few days, and I'll get years of use out of any updates.

To me the cost is not even worth considering, it's the other issues.

Edited March 17, 2017 by tater

[Rainbowd4sh]

Just now, Antonio432 said:

Yes, just like I have waited a few weeks for amazing mods that never updated.

Well yeah, there are some mods that don't update, but very quickly, a new mod replaces it. Look at visuals, there were many visual enhancements throughout the life of KSP that kept getting switched from owner to owner or just replaced with a new mod.

 

This is why I love theKSP community. It is either early in the morning, or late in the afternoon, yet we are all talking about a new installment literally hours after it was released. 

[Ant432]

1 minute ago, Rainbowd4sh said:

Well yeah, there are some mods that don't update, but very quickly, a new mod replaces it. Look at visuals, there were many visual enhancements throughout the life of KSP that kept getting switched from owner to owner or just replaced with a new mod.

 

This is why I love theKSP community. It is either early in the morning, or late in the afternoon, yet we are all talking about a new installment literally hours after it was released. 

Yes, mods are amazing and their creators deserve all the respect. But unfortunaly real life can get in the way and halt updated. I'd be ok with 1.3 being the final version so that we don't have to worry about the updates not existing. 

[Rainbowd4sh]

Just now, Antonio432 said:

Yes, mods are amazing and their creators deserve all the respect. But unfortunaly real life can get in the way and halt updated. I'd be ok with 1.3 being the final version so that we don't have to worry about the updates not existing. 

It'd be cool if they just switched to more mod-making, like ATM, there are Squad staff making mods, so it would be neat to just switch to that system so players could choose what they wanted. 

[Ant432]

1 minute ago, Rainbowd4sh said:

It'd be cool if they just switched to more mod-making, like ATM, there are Squad staff making mods, so it would be neat to just switch to that system so players could choose what they wanted. 

Yes, mods enable users to build their own game by using all the mods they want. 

[LukasKerman]

45 minutes ago, _Augustus_ said:

There is literally nothing that DLC can do that config editing and mods can't. We have a mod that can ADD OTHER PLANETS.....

If this is the ONLY paid DLC, I'll buy it. I am happy to pay for a single expansion that adds in some stuff that I would like in the base game and supports SQUAD, but if it just turns into a money-grab full of things that mods provide for free, I am quitting KSP. My money has better things to go to than to completely virtual stuff I can get for free in the form of a mod.

KSP really has helped to shape my life. It made me become a spaceflight enthusiast, which inspired me to become an amateur astronomer, which ultimately resulted in starting my own telescope-servicing company. I would hate to see this amazing game that shaped my future become a pure EA-like cash grab.

That's unfair. Squad had many plans for the game but instead of letting us wait for features they made the game mod friendly. In software development they say that the first 90% of a feature takes 10% of the time while the last 10% take 90% of the time (the polish and so on nobody sees). Mods are great but I would say most, if not all mods could not be simply added to the game as they are. Very very much of the work is still missing. Adding features which allready exist as a mod are not simply copy pasta. It's as if a company wanted to build an electric car and focuses on the engine first while you come up with a battery which consists of a bucket of acid and wires sticking out and yell I HAVE MADE BATTERY ;P 

Edited March 17, 2017 by LukasKerman

[Robotengineer]

This had to happen some time. If the cost of continued development is DLC, so be it. 

However, I do hope they don't increase the DRM (or basically add any DRM for those of us who bought it from the store or GOG).

[Snark]

I've been following this thread with interest, both as an avid KSP player and as a professional software developer.

Just to be up front about this, I'm delighted to hear this news, for a couple of reasons.

• I'm delighted to get new shiny toys to play with.  Yay!
• I'm delighted that they'll be charging or it.  Why?  Because it means they'll have cash flow to make more shiny toys.

Obviously this is a topic that's very important to the KSP community (as witnessed by the large volume of posts in this thread in such a short time).  Reading through the responses up to this point, I see a bunch of favorable posts (the "Yay!  Please take my money!" crowd), and also quite a few unfavorable posts (the "this is wrong" or "they should have done X instead" crowd).

I'll skip over the "favorable reaction" folks, since I happen to agree with them and don't think discussion's particularly needed here. 

However, I'd like to address at least some of the negative posts, because they seem to me to be missing the point.  In particular, there are a few specific rationales that many of the negative posts are citing, which seem shaky at best when I view them through the lens of my decades of experience doing this stuff for a living.

 

"Any paid expansion content is just bad on the face of it.  Nobody should do that ever."

Nobody has come right out and said the above quote in so many words, but there have been some posts whose wording pretty much implied this.  And given all the past vitriol I've seen expended in the forums about the very concept of "DLC" in general, I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few more folks may be thinking this.

Folks, I've been doing this for a living, shipping commercial software for over twenty years, and I can tell you that the above sentiment is patently ridiculous.  Here's a secret:

Every software company is, first and foremost, a business.  And businesses need to make money for doing what they do, on an ongoing basis.  Forever.  As long as the business is still in business.

Period, full stop.

You can like that, or not like it, as you will; but that's How Things Work.  It's how it has always worked, and always will.  Money is the oxygen supply of a business.  Choke that off, and the body dies.

Tell me... which of the following would you rather have?

1. Squad continues to make shiny kerbal toys, and charges for them.
2. Squad decides the well has run dry and closes up shop.  No more kerbal stuff, ever.

I dunno about you, but I would far rather have #1 than #2.  Make no mistake, #2 is almost certainly inevitable, eventually; that's part of the software life cycle.  But speaking as an avid KSP fan, I'd sure like for #2 to be delayed as far into the future as possible.  It's hard for me to imagine why any KSP player would prefer #2 to #1.

You'll note that I didn't provide any option #3, "Squad continues to make shiny kerbal toys for everyone forever, for free."  Because that's not economically possible.  It costs a lot of money to run a development outfit.  Businesses are expensive to run.  They'd have to be idiots to keep doing something if it doesn't make any (or enough) money.

Continuing to pack additional features into the stock game, for free, makes business sense only if they could significantly boost additional sales of the game by doing so.  There's no way of knowing KSP's finances for sure, of course, without seeing their sales numbers over time, which Squad has never publicly released.  However, KSP has been out for a few years, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if that well has run mostly dry by now.

Which would leave them with a choice between either closing up KSP shop and moving on to something else, or finding a way to provide additional content, for money, to their existing KSP players who feel like paying for it.

 

"I'm worried about <thing that isn't happening>"

Glad folks have raised questions and concerns where the initial announcement wasn't clear enough. 

The two main examples of such concerns that I see are,

• "I bought the game before April 2013 and was promised I wouldn't be charged for content!"
• "But I'll still get bug fixes for free in the stock game, yes?"

...fortunately, it sounds like both of those have been answered satisfactorily (yes, they'll keep their before-April-2013 promise; yes, the stock game will continue to update for free), so 'nuff said on that.

 

"This expansion is wrong / stupid because the stuff that's in there is already available via mods."

Some examples of this sentiment:

3 hours ago, Rainbowd4sh said:

Wait, you are adding 3 features that are all possible today, and asking people to pay for them?

2 hours ago, minepagan said:

Congrats, Squad. You're first expansion is something already doable with mods.

2 hours ago, mythbusters844 said:

that's cool and all, but why even buy the dlc if you can just do essentially the same thing with mods

2 hours ago, metalmouth7 said:

DLC that adds nothing but new mod-level content

1 hour ago, _Augustus_ said:

There is literally nothing that DLC can do that config editing and mods can't.

There are two answers to this sentiment.

The simple, "market-based" answer is:  Well, if you're right and there's literally no reason for anyone to buy such a thing, then the problem fixes itself, right?  Nobody will buy the expansion and it'll be a big money-loser.  In which case I would assume that Squad would make the smart business decision and just turn the lights out on KSP-- no point in throwing more money down a hole, if people aren't willing to spend money on it.  On the other hand, if the KSP community is enthusiastically in favor, and lots of people rush out to hand over their hard-earned cash for the expansion, then by definition it's worth it, yes?

So, that's a simple, self-answering question.   We just wait and see what happens.    You think the expansion's useless, so you keep your money in your wallet.  Other people run out and buy.  And then we see how successful it turns out to be.  (Though based on the large number of enthusiastic please-take-my-money posts in this thread, it kinda sounds to me like there's at least a reasonable shot at success.)

The slightly longer answer is:  No.  It's not the same.  Mods can't provide the "same stuff", other than very superficially.

Lengthy professional-software-engineer rant about that in spoiler section below.

Spoiler

First, may I point out how silly it is to make an argument that "Squad is bad to do <thing> because that can be done with a mod"?  Because, why can it be done with a mod?  Answer:  Because Squad bent over backwards to make KSP incredibly moddable.  That's why you have so many cool mods that can do practically everything.  Speaking as a professional software engineer, I can tell you that making something extensible like that is very non-trivial.  It takes a lot of work.  Kudos to Squad for doing that, especially since it's not a direct revenue-driver.

So, it seems kind of silly to me to take the fact that Squad has done us all a big favor by making the game so moddable, and then try to use that to criticize them for putting their own efforts into the game.

Second, when you get something from a mod, it's not the same thing as getting it from the stock game.  A mod is produced by (usually) a single individual, usually an amateur (however gifted and passionate), who is doing it basically for free, as a hobby.  Actual game content is produced by a dedicated team of professionals, who get paid to do this full-time, and who have to stand behind their product because there are paying customers.

There's a world of difference between those two situations.

• You don't get professional-level QA from a mod.  Mods can be buggy, either crashing the game outright or tanking the performance or not scaling or a variety of other problems.
  • For example, I loved it when they added CommNet to the stock game... even though RemoteTech already exists.  Why?  Because RemoteTech is buggy and crashes all the time.  I loved RemoteTech, but eventually had to stop playing it because of the technical issues.  Whereas CommNet runs smooth as silk for me.  Yes, I got CommNet for free, but that's an example of a feature I'd have paid money for, if need be.  Given a choice between "RemoteTech for free" versus "professional feature for a few dollars", I'd choose the latter without hesitation.
• You don't get any guarantee of ongoing support.  Mods go obsolete and die all the time.  I've lost track of how many "dead mod" threads keep cropping up in the Add-on Releases forum, often with some plaintive user wanting to know "is this still alive?  I need this!"

I've been playing KSP since 0.23.5, and have loved all the added stuff they've put in the stock game since then.  And practically everything was something that was doable as a mod before it was stock.  Contracts.  New aero.  Reentry heating.  Procedural fairings.  Revamped biomes.  New aerodynamics.  Communications networks.  And on, and on.

In short:  "You can do it in a mod" really isn't a reason for Squad not to do it, because practically everything is doable in a mod.  The only reason not to do it would be if the new content really isn't compelling, and the market will answer that question soon enough. 

 

 

"This expansion is wrong / stupid because the stock game should <something>"

Some examples of this sentiment:

3 hours ago, Chris_2 said:

How about first finishing the base game before adding DLC? The base game isn't even 1.0 worthy. At least balance the parts (stats, weights,etc) <- seriously, that's a couple of hours work... before starting to add new parts.

2 hours ago, minepagan said:

What sells better: "inconplete game with paid expansions" or "completed game with extensive modding community"?

2 hours ago, Wallygator said:

So Squad finally builds a semi-fix to a crappy career mode.  Yea! Oh crap, I have to pay for it.

2 hours ago, metalmouth7 said:

while the game itself still isn't finished, and there's still serious bugs in the public tracker dating back to 2013. Yes, DLC is definitely what this unfinished game needs.

1 hour ago, tater said:

To the extent that the "expansion" fixes what should have been 1.0 content, I think that those things should at the very least be added to stock at the same time, just out of principle.

Elements in the OP are clearly expansion territory, but other elements are things that should be stock.

...See, the problem with basically all such complaints is the use (explicit, or implied) of the word "should".

Folks, I've been doing this for a living for a couple of decades, and I can tell you that there's no such thing as "should".

Or, rather, there's only one "should".  And that's this:  "A product should provide enough value to the user to justify the amount of money they spent on it."

Lengthy rationale in another spoiler.

Spoiler

Tell me, how much money did you spend on KSP?  And how many hours of entertainment have you gotten out of it?  Divide the former by the latter-- can anyone honestly tell me that KSP is actually a bad use of your money?  I dunno about you, but I spent US$27 on the stock game, and have gotten literally thousands of hours of entertainment out of it.  It's the best value-for-money of about any product (software or otherwise) that I've spent money on, ever.

I'm not saying that anyone shouldn't criticize.  If there's a thing you don't like about the stock game, great!  Shout it to the world.    However, it's important to remember that there's a crucial distinction between these two statements:

• "I would like it better if the game did X."
• "The game should X."

The former is absolutely valid, and an excellent way to express a sentiment.  The latter is simply nonsense.  There's no "should," here, other than the one I mention above.  For example, there are plenty of people who don't like KSP's career mode, and are (quite appropriately) vocal about that.  But there are plenty of other people who are fine with career and like what's been done with it.  What the game "should" do depends on the market reaction, overall, to what it does.

So, unless someone can show me where KSP hasn't delivered something they explicitly promised, or that they haven't delivered reasonable hours-per-dollar of entertainment, there's really no "should" or "incomplete" here.

 

"But it's just a money grab!"

Yes.  Of course.  Because Squad is a business.  And everything that every business does is a money grab.  Otherwise, it's not a business, it's a charity.

Businesses need to make money.  It's what they need to survive.  It is, in fact, the sole point of a business.  Nobody just hands money to them, so they have to go after it.  It's what businesses do.  They have to.  A business has to go after money the way that you have to go after oxygen.

Unless by "money grab" you only mean "bad for customers" or something, in which case that's an accusation I'd like to see some evidence for.  I spent US$27 on KSP, in exchange for literally thousands of hours of entertainment.  I'm hard-pressed to see anything unscrupulous about that.