KSP Making History

[LaytheDragon]

20 hours ago, UomoCapra said:

We are thrilled and proud

You are: Sales on this will be through the roof, which could have very exciting implications. I for one shall most-likely be getting this expansion when it arrives.

It is clear that it is likely (but not certain, since we haven't seen the features yet) some of this expansion's features (likely, but not certainly, the new parts) should be stock and non-paid, especially the kerbal parachute (and maybe the new astronaut suit, if it is a new kerbal model?), but Squad needs money somehow, or else new feature-adding will grind to a halt, and the game will become abandoned. Luckily for Squad and us, with the magic of expansions, KSP still is profitable, so new features can still arrive. Let's hope that Squad decides to use the money from the expansion (and from KSP's soon-to-come multi-language compatibility) to pay their staff for some needed or commonly-requested stock features, such as better visuals, a Gas Planet 2, or a Ringed Gas Planet 2 With Moons (though these features can all be easily achieved with excellent mods, having them in stock would be even better (considering many don't like or bother with downloading mods, but love playing KSP)). One has to wonder if new stock features would lure more KSP-players back to KSP, so they would get addicted again and thereafter buy Squad's expansion pack.

Edited March 17, 2017 by LaytheDragon

[IllyrianTheGreat]

Does that mean we can create our own KSC anywhere?

[Guest]

19 hours ago, UomoCapra said:

Recreating history: Included in Kerbal Space Program: Making History Expansion is the History Pack. Players will be able to experience the trials and tribulations of the early days of Space Exploration on missions inspired by real life historical events.

Well, they won't, actually, because you guys don't model random part failures or even MTBF, and Kerbals have magical EVA suits, and your solar system is a toy, but ... okay, I guess.

19 hours ago, UomoCapra said:

New parts: Aside from mission creations tools, Kerbal Space Program: Making History Expansion will have additional parts such as new fuel tanks, adapters, decouplers, fairings and command pods… inspired by both American and Soviet space programs!

Will the base game parts ever be updated?

19 hours ago, UomoCapra said:

Challenge other players: A new addition to Kerbal Space Program: Making History Expansion will be the concept of scoring. At the end of a mission you will get a numerical score to compare with your friends and the community.

Are you going to include a list of mods in the scoring? Or even the concept of "player used mods"?

19 hours ago, UomoCapra said:

Kerbal Space Program: Making History Expansion is still in development and will be released as a paid expansion. Pricing and availability details will be announced at a later date.

I know that those of us who purchased before April 2013 will receive this expansion for free, per the previous promise. How will that be handled for those of us who transferred our copy to Steam? Right now I can;'t even remember how to login in to your store much less the password I used at the time or the email account I used to register the purchase.

19 hours ago, UomoCapra said:

We can’t wait to see what the community is going to be able to create with this new creative tool within Kerbal Space Program

Quite frankly the ability to spec a mission (or "propose" one) is something that was sorely lacking from the base career game. I'm glad you guys finally decided it was a somewhat good thing.

@Badie @Art3misa

[Keiya]

6 hours ago, Badie said:

Yes we will keep our promise 

Does that include for those who bought before the date but transferred to steam after? Steam says I just have normal retail.

[Lupi]

1 minute ago, Keiya said:

Does that include for those who bought before the date but transferred to steam after? Steam says I just have normal retail.

I think in an ideal world, they would still have data on when you purchased the game; perhaps you can go to your KSP store account and see that initial purchase and its date, regardless of migration to steam. 

[monstah]

@JPLRepo hey buddy, my question got drowned in the early thread  

 

7 hours ago, monstah said:

Ooooo, Mission Builder!

Question: If when I make a mission using it, does it create files I can exchange with any KSP player (like mods), or do they need to have the Mission Builder to play them, too?

[JPLRepo]

1 minute ago, monstah said:

@JPLRepo hey buddy, my question got drowned in the early thread  

 

7 hours ago, monstah said:

Ooooo, Mission Builder!

Question: If when I make a mission using it, does it create files I can exchange with any KSP player (like mods), or do they need to have the Mission Builder to play them, too?

Yes you can export your mission files and exchange them with other players.

and of course, people will need the expansion installed to be able to play your missions.

[monstah]

2 minutes ago, JPLRepo said:

and of course, people will need the expansion installed to be able to play your missions.

Yeah, my wish was that Mission-Builder-made missions were Vanilla-KSP-compatible  ("any player" there meant, "with the expansion or not")

But, anyway, thanks for answering. Will have fun with it, still

[septemberWaves]

I'm curious to see what the Mission Builder entails. I would like to see the ability to pick and choose a set of goals, combine them into a single contract, and have the game automatically generate rewards for it based on the goals chosen.

[JPLRepo]

Just now, eloquentJane said:

I'm curious to see what the Mission Builder entails. I would like to see the ability to pick and choose a set of goals, combine them into a single contract, and have the game automatically generate rewards for it based on the goals chosen.

All that and more.. and it's not contract based. It's a Mission.

[septemberWaves]

Just now, JPLRepo said:

All that and more.. and it's not contract based. It's a Mission.

So something more along the lines of the existing scenarios, but player made instead? Makes sense.

That being said, a contract-editing ability would be interesting too.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, JPLRepo said:

All that and more.. and it's not contract based. It's a Mission.

Oh. Well. That makes it far less interesting to me. Thanks for clarifying.

[monstah]

3 minutes ago, JPLRepo said:

It's a Mission.

Sounds SERIOUS.  

[JPLRepo]

2 minutes ago, eloquentJane said:

So something more along the lines of the existing scenarios, but player made instead? Makes sense.

That being said, a contract-editing ability would be interesting too.

It's not a Scenario either. It's a Mission/s. [edit] and Mission/s are creatable, editable, etc.

[Lupi]

Just now, monstah said:

Sounds SERIOUS.  

only if you choose to accept it. Then it self destructs, because it's made out of explodium.

[Jackaroo0505]

@IllyrianTheGreat I do not know. See if you can get into contact with one of the devs and see. I hope so!

[Lord Aurelius]

If I'm reading the OP and the various dev comments correctly, it sounds like there are four parts to this expansion:

1. Mission Builder

2. Historical mission pack

3. New parts

4. Kerbal Parachutes

The mission builder sounds like it's effectively an official implementation of the Challenges subforum. That sounds like a neat addition for the game and would nicely complement the base game as an expansion. It would also officially add a multiplayer aspect to the game in a sense.

A historical mission pack could also be neat. Depending on how it's implemented (historical background on the missions) it could also be a great tool for learning more about the history of spaceflight. Will these simply be a collection of scenarios, or a standalone campaign-type system following the space race? Also, this feature seems different enough from the concept of the mission builder that I'm a little puzzled about both being included in the same expansion.

New parts are always appreciated, but I would like to know more about how these parts will fit in with the existing part list. If they're primarily cosmetic parts for building historical replica rockets for the historical mission pack, then I can understand why they're including them in this expansion. If they're also meant to address problems with the existing parts list, then this effectively becomes a paid bugfix release instead of just an expansion. Either way, limiting new parts to a paid expansion will fragment the spacecraft exchange to some degree and make it more difficult to share craft universally unless you ignore all the new parts.

I'm puzzled about the inclusion of Kerbal parachutes in the expansion. This feature seems to be unrelated to everything else mentioned about the expansion. The only connection I can think of is that it's potentially related to some of the historical missions, but overall this seems like a feature that should be put into the base game instead of having two different behaviors for Kerbals depending on whether or not someone has the expansion pack.

Overall, I'm glad to see Squad branching out and adding some new gameplay features to KSP. I'll likely get the expansion (provided the price is reasonable) to support continued development, but I have some concerns about community fragmentation.

[JPLRepo]

2 minutes ago, Lord Aurelius said:

<snip>

A historical mission pack could also be neat. Depending on how it's implemented (historical background on the missions) it could also be a great tool for learning more about the history of spaceflight. Will these simply be a collection of scenarios, or a standalone campaign-type system following the space race? Also, this feature seems different enough from the concept of the mission builder that I'm a little puzzled about both being included in the same expansion.

<snip>

They will be Missions that you can play with the Mission Builder expansion installed. Created with the Mission Builder itself. Using all the other components that are also part of the Expansion (parts,etc).

[Cydonian Monk]

7 minutes ago, Lord Aurelius said:

I'm puzzled about the inclusion of Kerbal parachutes in the expansion.

One word: Vostok. 

[Dman979]

Well, I either bought my game in April or in March, I can't remember.

Quote

2014-03-04

But it was in 2014, so it's a moot point.

I look forward to seeing the new DLC, even though I generally hate the concept.

[GeekFurious]

7 hours ago, Badie said:

Yes we will keep our promise 

Pffft. I'll happily pay for it.

[septemberWaves]

15 minutes ago, Lord Aurelius said:

Either way, limiting new parts to a paid expansion will fragment the spacecraft exchange to some degree and make it more difficult to share craft universally unless you ignore all the new parts.

I don't think it will fragment spacecraft exchanging any more than modded parts do. If you have the parts you can use the spacecraft, if not then you can't. Modded craft have always worked that way and it hasn't really caused issues. I imagine there will be people complaining about having to pay for the parts, but honestly if they don't think it's worth paying a bit of extra money to expand the game then they can't really complain about the game not being expansive enough (and anyway, there are still modders who make high-quality parts packs for free).

 

15 minutes ago, Lord Aurelius said:

I'm puzzled about the inclusion of Kerbal parachutes in the expansion. This feature seems to be unrelated to everything else mentioned about the expansion. The only connection I can think of is that it's potentially related to some of the historical missions, but overall this seems like a feature that should be put into the base game instead of having two different behaviors for Kerbals depending on whether or not someone has the expansion pack.

Kerbal individual parachutes makes sense because what they are probably going to include is some Gemini-style parts. That would fill a significant gap in both the tech tree (if they move the Apollo capsule later in the tree at least) and the historical inspiration for most of the stock parts (it would be particularly good for mid-game use when a single crew member isn't enough but hauling the Apollo capsule to space is too expensive when you only need a pilot and scientist). Gemini-inspired parts seem to be the most likely cause for the kerbal parachutes because while the Mercury and Apollo programs both used launch escape towers, the Gemini program used ejection seats with individual parachutes.

I would agree though that it seems like something which should be added to the stock game rather than confined to the paid DLC.

 

7 minutes ago, Cydonian Monk said:

One word: Vostok.

Or Gemini. Both used an ejector-seat launch escape system, but only one of them fits perfectly in a historical gap left empty by current stock parts, which have thus far been mainly US-inspired.

Edited March 17, 2017 by eloquentJane

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, eloquentJane said:

Kerbal individual parachutes makes sense because what they are probably going to include is some Gemini-style parts.

Also Vostok. since the capsule didn't have parachutes.

[greenTurtle1134]

Contract Configurator does about the same thing as the mission editor, just requires a boatload of code, right...?

Someone's probably going to go replicate the expansion's features in a third party tool. Then you're paying for the UI and donating money to Squad, which is... not that bad, actually.

[septemberWaves]

2 minutes ago, regex said:

Also Vostok. since the capsule didn't have parachutes.

Very true, but Vostok is comparable to the Mercury program (which stock KSP already has parts inspired by) while the Gemini program fills the niche of technological development for advanced orbital operations before Apollo (also represented by stock KSP) took the next step and went to the Moon.