More challenging career mode is what we need.

[Noud]

10 minutes ago, tater said:

I would argue that No one should get to the Mun in 3 kerbin days, or 30. In fact, not 300.

Career is supposed to have some suspension of disbelief. The player is creating their own narrative about the growth of a space program. Everything happens ridiculously fast. Yes, making time meaningful means the player would "warp" though months at a time. I'm fine with that, it's single player, and time should matter.

Inventing rockets to orbit should not be measured in MINUTES, which it is in KSP.

why would you not want to have time limits that you can actually fail? failing a few times before you succeed makes the game so much more fun to play

[tater]

I agree entirely, but without making time matter (having it take vaguely realistic amounts of time to build a new rocket, or recondition a pad, for example) What would the time limit be on achieving a given goal? 

What's the first orbital goal timeframe going to be starting at the convention of rocketry? 60 minutes, or have I made that way, way too long, so that it is impossible to fail? Orbit in a new career is what, the 3d flight? 1st launch is the usual mk1, chute, and flea, maybe with some fins. The flight involves more parachute time than climbing. If you're in a rush, you might launch this to land a few different places at KSC, and load up on science points, and perhaps walk around if you felt like mining the space center for points (something I hate). Second launch is either suborbital, or high alt, and third is for sure suborbital at the least. 4th is orbit. The suborbital flight times are measured in minutes.

You've gone from "rockets seem cool!" to orbital flight in less time that it would have taken a real kerbal to eat a snack.

[Noud]

4 minutes ago, tater said:

I agree entirely, but without making time matter (having it take vaguely realistic amounts of time to build a new rocket, or recondition a pad, for example) What would the time limit be on achieving a given goal? 

What's the first orbital goal timeframe going to be starting at the convention of rocketry? 60 minutes, or have I made that way, way too long, so that it is impossible to fail? Orbit in a new career is what, the 3d flight? 1st launch is the usual mk1, chute, and flea, maybe with some fins. The flight involves more parachute time than climbing. If you're in a rush, you might launch this to land a few different places at KSC, and load up on science points, and perhaps walk around if you felt like mining the space center for points (something I hate). Second launch is either suborbital, or high alt, and third is for sure suborbital at the least. 4th is orbit. The suborbital flight times are measured in minutes.

You've gone from "rockets seem cool!" to orbital flight in less time that it would have taken a real kerbal to eat a snack.

well the real time goal would be that you have to prioritise some missions over others, you cant accept a contract for lets say minmus and later find out you need more tech to do it, and then put the contract on hold until you have enough tech yo do so 

[LoSBoL]

1 hour ago, tater said:

All my career comments over the years have really been designed with replay in mind, as I've already had the "first" experiences.

That's why, in addition to a true space race (since a space race is implicitly implied in every aspect of KSP career, anyway), I also favor a new career system that changes the solar system (including scale), and hides data from the player they would not have without space probes---so that a new replay career could have some of the same sense of discovery and accomplishment that everyone's first Mun landing had.

I've read quite a few of your comments and recommendations for Vanilla KSP, you put a lot of thought into them and I like a fair share of them.
I don't percieve a career to be a space race though, sure there are world firsts, and if you put thought in them, no, they don't make much sense, I just don't emphasize on that those details to much.
As for the replay value, Í choose to play Vanilla (with a few QOL mods) and take my time in my first career, no need to rush through the tech tree or accept contract after contract, no space planes for me yet etc.
When the time comes that I have done all those things, I'll add more dificulty with mods like life support, solar systems, planet and parts packs.
By constraining myself now a bit I hope to extend the replay value later on.
As for the time constraints in Vanilla, I'd settle for time not pausing when I'm fiddling around at the KSC.

How about this for a contract in 'hardest' career mode?, orbit Duna within 150 days (lets throw out the launch window)

 

[tater]

The current "difficulty levels" in KSP are nothing more than grind levels in most respects---the only exception being no reverts of quicksaves. Personally, I only quicksave for protection against bugs, and I do it so infrequently it doesn't help me much (invariably I experience some (usually mod related) bug and I haven't made a QS in many kerbal months). Reverts I do use, but only for stuff I forgot upon hitting launch. Like I forgot to put the desired crew aboard, or I changed something at the top of the stack on a previous launch vehicle, and forgot to add the science parts back to it.

The space race aspect of stock KSP is obvious, and certainly implicit in everything about it. World's first implies it is possible to not be first. The very existence of rescue contracts is proof positive that there are other space programs out there.

[regex]

1 hour ago, tater said:

Orbit in a new career is what, the 3d flight? 1st launch is the usual mk1, chute, and flea, maybe with some fins.

Some claim it can be the first launch, and I am inclined to believe that (even if I never bother trying).

Quote

You've gone from "rockets seem cool!" to orbital flight in less time that it would have taken a real kerbal to eat a snack.

So what happens when you drag this out?

You end up with RP-0. That's not necessarily a bad thing because it generally plays a bit better than stock, but it still suffers from the same fundamental flaw: micromanagement. Micromanagement means that, even with a dragged-out timeframe and a realistic tech tree, you always end up babysitting launches that have no real meaning beyond making funds.

This is why I argue that every launch should be meaningful to the player, and not just in an arbitrary way like "make funds". KSP should strive to remove "filler missions" and that is where a light building and maintenance management sim can come into being. Your time between launches should be spent managing faux launches and schedules for testing, making sure the rent is paid, setting priorities for exploration and allocating budget for those exploratory flights, directing research priorities, that sort of thing. An actual launch into a bona fide mission should be a big event, something that represents a milestone or a mission that has been planned. Let the player direct a space program. This doesn't need to be a guided experience either, but it helps create a narrative beyond doing yet another side quest to fund the R&D building upgrade.

Much as flying a mission is important to the game, it is also too much of career mode. Sandbox is where the player can just launch and go, career should involve an actual space program.

Edited May 10, 2017 by regex

[tater]

@regex, I couldn't possibly agree more.

Clearly something needs to fill the time, ideally while the clock is speeding ahead.

The reality of a launch is indeed key. No quick saves, no revert, perhaps no leaving the scene/focus short of hitting "Abort." Something KCT-like, where you can do "simulations," perhaps intentionally at some low res, and/or that explicitly don't count. 

I've never said that designing a good career mode was easy, in fact it's a substantially harder process than designing the physics of flight, but it could be very rewarding.

[LoSBoL]

29 minutes ago, tater said:

The current "difficulty levels" in KSP are nothing more than grind levels in most respects---the only exception being no reverts of quicksaves. Personally, I only quicksave for protection against bugs, and I do it so infrequently it doesn't help me much (invariably I experience some (usually mod related) bug and I haven't made a QS in many kerbal months). Reverts I do use, but only for stuff I forgot upon hitting launch. Like I forgot to put the desired crew aboard, or I changed something at the top of the stack on a previous launch vehicle, and forgot to add the science parts back to it.

The space race aspect of stock KSP is obvious, and certainly implicit in everything about it. World's first implies it is possible to not be first. The very existence of rescue contracts is proof positive that there are other space programs out there.

I can see that perspective, I'm glad to read that after so many years(?) of playing, you still forget to board crew members

As for the worlds firsts, that's exactly what I ment with putting to much thought into that.

[tater]

Forgetting crew, or putting the wrong crew... a constant issue. Or sending station parts up that I meant to be unmanned (crew aboard a proper craft with some abort mode), only to not notice that they are full, etc.

Early in career, where I still use some stock parts (the mk1 pod, mostly), I cannot begin to estimate the number of times I have actually launched a vessel with the ^#$@%$#@%$#@%@!# parachute staged the same as the engine. Seriously, @SQUAD, if there is a single chute, it should automatically float to the top of the stack as a default---making a new stage if required so it is alone, unless moved by the player.

[Pthigrivi]

1 hour ago, regex said:

Some claim it can be the first launch, and I am inclined to believe that (even if I never bother trying).

So what happens when you drag this out?

You end up with RP-0. That's not necessarily a bad thing because it generally plays a bit better than stock, but it still suffers from the same fundamental flaw: micromanagement. Micromanagement means that, even with a dragged-out timeframe and a realistic tech tree, you always end up babysitting launches that have no real meaning beyond making funds.

This is why I argue that every launch should be meaningful to the player, and not just in an arbitrary way like "make funds". KSP should strive to remove "filler missions" and that is where a light building and maintenance management sim can come into being. Your time between launches should be spent managing faux launches and schedules for testing, making sure the rent is paid, setting priorities for exploration and allocating budget for those exploratory flights, directing research priorities, that sort of thing. An actual launch into a bona fide mission should be a big event, something that represents a milestone or a mission that has been planned. Let the player direct a space program. This doesn't need to be a guided experience either, but it helps create a narrative beyond doing yet another side quest to fund the R&D building upgrade.

Much as flying a mission is important to the game, it is also too much of career mode. Sandbox is where the player can just launch and go, career should involve an actual space program.

I feel like this is more or less exactly what my proposal on the previous page could achieve. Even now you don't have to do any of those filler missions. The milestones can can carry you all by themselves. They're always available and you can do them in whatever order you please, its just right now you can't see them when you open mission control.

The other thing that really makes that late-game experience something more is life support. I've been playing in career with USI-LS and it's actually really nicely tuned. 

[regex]

41 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

I feel like this is more or less exactly what my proposal on the previous page could achieve.

No, not exactly. It certainly accomplishes one thing in that funds become less of a concern but that just makes me wonder why I'm playing career mode in the first place.

41 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

The other thing that really makes that late-game experience something more is life support. I've been playing in career with USI-LS and it's actually really nicely tuned. 

Are you talking life support or colonization/colony management? Because life support is largely irrelevant once you can loft a suitable amount to LKO. I've played with TAC LS without recyclers and it means pretty much nothing to lift 50 tons of LS + a transfer stage to an outer worlds station every few years (or just bring it along with new crew, or a replacement craft, or whatever).

[Pthigrivi]

24 minutes ago, regex said:

No, not exactly. It certainly accomplishes one thing in that funds become less of a concern but that just makes me wonder why I'm playing career mode in the first place.

What it means is if you've been playing a while you can turn down your funds rewards so that you're more reliant on those time-based bonuses to progress. It also means you have to more carefully manage your program between launches. You could also tune up the length of time things like rocket construction and research development take so that you have less available tech when the world first dates hit. Its a way to make things more challenging without making players more dependent on repetitive fund-raising missions. 

39 minutes ago, regex said:

Are you talking life support or colonization/colony management? Because life support is largely irrelevant once you can loft a suitable amount to LKO. I've played with TAC LS without recyclers and it means pretty much nothing to lift 50 tons of LS + a transfer stage to an outer worlds station every few years (or just bring it along with new crew, or a replacement craft, or whatever).

I just do the stand alone USI-LS plus kontainers and nuclear reactors. MKS get really dense and tends to gobble up more time than I'm really interested in. With USI its more a question of balancing break-evens on recyclers, greenhouses and ISRU to really optimize mass over the time-scale of the mission you have planned. For outer planets you can refine fertilizer for greenhouses from ore which cuts out really long resupply missions. 

[Boris-Barboris]

I'd rather much more like a campaign or two, not a career mode. Carefully, manually designed sequence of missions (with mutually exclusive branches), with harsh financial pressure that guarantees that even experienced player fails one or two runs, passable story, and, most importantly, interesting, complex, but not grindy tasks. No missions other that that. Zero ore buying price. Have missions intertwine, make player reuse the vessel he left on the Duna three missions ago, slap some fancy unique plot-related structures. Have a mission on Laythe and make the player to bring vtol with claw with him. Make him catch some mad-AI-driven little diddler rover with it two missions later. Pay some respect to existing or new easter eggs...

Decades ago it was an a standard to have a campaign in a game, but then devs learned, that rng is cheaper. Rng will never replace an artist, writer will never outperform rng. Leave simulation and routine to rng. Keep machine away from goal designation and plot. Best in can do is to throw prefabbed events at you. Technology just isn't there yet.

Obligatory https://github.com/crawl/crawl/blob/master/crawl-ref/docs/crawl_manual.rst#crusade-against-no-brainers

[tater]

The other issue surrounding "challenge" is the simple fact that KSP necessarily becomes easier as a career game continues in the current paradigm (and most alternate ones I can imagine, sadly). The Kerbal pilot skill, for example, don't make actually flying well (planning maneuvers, etc) easier, but it certainly makes it less tedious, and more predictable. Having larger stuff = later also makes thing easier, as you are no longer on a  shoestring dv budget to solve problems.  The lack of planning tools exacerbates this to the extent that the solution is simply "overkill," and overkill is easier later in the game.

How to solve this is non-trivial. If the program had real "management" issues, then you'd be limited later in the game because eventually you'll have a more or less fixed budget to accomplish your goals.

[DNKKING]

It's true

[Duck McFuddle]

I'm going to keep this simple:

I dislike this idea.

Career mode is hard enough already, and KSP has difficulty controls. I find it hard enough to manage part size with ships in a lower-size VAB, and even just getting to orbit with the limited resources entertains me. I don't want career mode to be the "hard" mode of KSP - I want it to be another way to play the game, one with fun things like contracts and money and reputation. It doesn't need to be harder because it's original purpose wasn't to be hard, just a more diverse playing experience where you have to manage more resources.

[RocketSquid]

I’m not a fan of construction time simply because it’s fun to imagine a society so thoroughly devoted to rocketry that they have all of the parts in a big warehouse and can throw a rocket together in about ten minutes flat.

[Xurkitree]

A harder career mode? You can do that yourself. Just use the difficulty options and sliders.

I promise you, completing the Tech Tree when the science sliders go down the more you unlock is fun.

[JammedDiskDrive]

I generally think that while Career Mode doesn't need to become harder, it just needs to be revamped.

A lot of things need changing desperately, and a lot of things need added too. Whether or not it makes it harder is subjective. Now, here's some thoughts of mine that I think could make Career mode more fun or harder, depending on who you are:

1. A Visitor Complex
To actually make the arguably useless reputation actually mean something, let's make a Visitor Complex! Much like a real world complex, KSP's complex would take Funds to run, and it would generate Funds and Rep in return. While this does sound like a new strategy for the Administration Building, the Visitor Complex would be much, much more in-depth than just some flavor text and a slider with some number values. The Visitor Complex would have a set number of Visitors/Tourists that can be in the complex. They'd well, visit said complex, pay admission, and maybe buy things from a gift shop or do other tourist activities. It would also have a set number of Exhibits- Artifacts, models, interactive experiments, etc.- from some of your launches that you deem important or significant (The player has full control over what is deemed worthy enough to be an Exhibit, via the use of a check-mark box at the end of a flight menu). Generally, the Exhibits would be from important events in the Space Program's history, whether it be the first launch, the first orbit, or the first landing on another planet. The more significant the exhibit, the more people who will visit it.  Now it does function like a strategy, i.e. you can only put so much money into it at first, before you have to upgrade it, but the more money you put into it, generally more Kerbals will have a better time there. Happy Kerbals=Reputation increase. The higher you level up the complex, the more things you can have at it- and I'm not talking about just Exhibits-tour buses, Camp programs, etc. Maybe an option to water down some of this via a difficulty setting if it isn't your style.

2. Make Part Manufacturers actually mean something

Right about now, the Part Manufacturers are just a silly name with a logo you can use as your ship's flag. While that might be good for some, I do think that they should actually mean something, and it would be based off of everyone's favorite statistic- Reputation! Effectively, the higher your reputation, the more manufacturers would let you use their parts on your rocket. Some have higher standards than others, and some (namely Jeb's Junkyard) don't care at all (as that would make sense, considering Jeb is an astronaut).  Perhaps include a mechanic where manufacturers might have price hikes or price drops, either due to a shortage in materials or due to a surplus.

I swear I had something else to say, but I can't remember what it was

[Aeroboi]

I got a few space station idea's here and a makeover of the leveling system.

So far there are lousy space station contracts.
What I would like to suggest...

• Being able to train any kerbal on space stations. If i.e. a engineer in on board and he stays at the space station for 2 years he will advance a level but he won't be able to advance another level for a following 5 years. This is to make sure you don't abuse it so you make kerbals stay in space stations only and it's a neat secondary way to level up Kerbals. For a scientist to level up a MPL must be part of the station.
• Adding to the 5 year rule, If a kerbal advanced level on a station and remains at that or any other station before heading either to kerbin or a ground base nearby he wont be able to advance another level. The idea being is to give kerbals a normal bio rhythm. Normally you don't only spend time in orbit, you get to land from time to time. When training and getting better at something involves normal lifestyle, at least, as normal as a kerbal lifestyle can be at a lonely surface base. This would mean a kerbal would want to at least stay 2 years at the surface after he/she leveled up to give resting time. The contract system should supply plenty of these contracts. The amount of kerbals per each contract to be transported will be based upon the crew capacity of a formerly used transport vessel near the SOI of that station. Let's say you have a Duna space station and you have formerly used a 8 crew lander on Duna then the game knows your capable of making a 8 crew duna lander and it will pump out the contract requirement to transport 8 of those kerbals from that space station to a Duna surface base but no more then those 8 kerbals in order to direct the difficulty based on the experience of the player. Instead of specifying the kerbal names you should have free choice which 8 on those station would be transported. Otherwise large stations or many stations in over crowded SOI's would be hard to manage. Make the rule apply universally outside the contract system. So you can manage this freely even if the contract system lacks to produce the contracts themselves. Of course, transporting kerbals from stations outside the contract system won't get you any rewards. Adjusting the fund difficulty slider at the career start should determine the balance of your own gameplay. If your 8 crew duna lander is a re-usable SSTO then you'll spend less and with that experience you'd set the income slider lower.
• Adding to that, make contracts to transport kerbals from one station to another, contracts should spawn so that stations are listed closest to the existing station the target kerbal is living at. When accepting the contract the target kerbal must hop to that other station, however, if he doesn't and the contract fails the kerbal wont add up days to his/her experience and he will have to wait 3 years to make use of station leveling again including the contract penalty received with it.
• Make contracts to transport Kerbals
• Make station requirements random as they are now but create a modular contract requirement setup. What does that mean? Well, if a station contract is made make it so that the contract states you "could" take 5000units of liquid fuel to a space station, however it should have a second or even third alternative, for instance, take a module with a capacity for 25 Kerbals.
  Taking the 25 kerbals is easier as it's lighter weight, but involves more capsules so you'll have a bulkier/draggier rocket with higher part count, or you decide to take up the fuel. Doing any of both or multiple alternatives should complete the contract.
• Within the alternative options throw in some Squad chosen exotics, like, use a specific totally random crew capsule of a given amount on top of the general modules primary and secondary alternative types. This is so randomness can add particularly creativity to your own making. Sometimes, a random card is the right card, and sometimes you lack your own creativity and an random option can be quite unique if own intuition fails at times.
• Such a contract system involves your freedom of choice how to equip the space station but involves those typical contact requirements that enforce you to equip it with anything useful, but freely chosen for the particular station you wish to add to without over complexing the current contract system further.
• Add contracts to move a space station, the rewards for the contract are more excessive because it could be harder. It is your logic to accept, if your space station is to asymmetrical you may not want to accept. Part of it involves you take up the required parts like having a particular engine that isn't currently part of the vessel and must therefore be launched. Otherwise the space station wasn't a station to begin with as it had it's own propulsion for starters. Part of the contract could involve changing the space station orbit, or move it to another SOI within the current system.

 

Modify contract requirements based on funds and science score.

What does that involve?

Well, if you have open tech nodes and the required R&D facility level to unlock those but you are absolutely scarce on science points, well, make it so that the contract system throws most of those science experiments into the contract mix. Some give plenty for orbital survey's and eva contracts so have these contracts boosted up with science rewards based on reputation.
On the other hand, if you are scarce on funds make it so that the contract requirement states that you must use a rocket with a particular lowest cost available engine or suffer administrative cost. So use a reliant over a swivel and only use solid rockets as boosters if necessary, that or stay under a specified launch cost or have reduced contract income.
That enforces people to be more creative with their early rocket designs. That also learns people who are simplistic to improve their creativity by holding on to a particular rocket design such a system should direct.

Word catches.

Add "expectation" catches to the difficulty sliders in the career creation menu.
So far plenty of new and professional players have set a general score on how difficulty is perceived. If not anyone then Squad should have the information from the player base to determine the difficulty spectrum from A to Z.

When creating a career game the "Funds" difficulty slider is set at 100% default.

Make it so that there are catching sayings when sliding from 10% to 1000%. As a few examples,
if you were to set it at 10% as almost nobody does there should be a catch saying "You haul asteroids from Eve"
On the other hand, if it were 40% it would say "re-usable rocket engineer"
If it were 100% it would say "you forgot to adjust this setting"
If it were 200% it would say "you are intending to make things easy?"
If it were 1000% it would say "Why are you playing career anyway?"

To be more direct, the sayings should make sense. Have semi arbitrary but user based catch lines that kind of gives away the expected difficulty when using that option by referring to a catch line that gives away a expected play style. For 40% funds I expect you make re-usable rockets to get into a expected career pace duration.
This give general consensus about the direction on how to setup your career properly based on your experience.
The same should be applied to the science and reputation sliders. Part of why career is sometimes outside the pleasurable experience is because people fail to set it up properly even although the career system in it's intirety is at fault here.
I don't know how Squad formerly expected the contract system to evolve, but they haven't made it clear how they'd envisioned the current career system to be played or did any effort to learn how to set it up properly based on how they currently constructed it.

 

[Aelipse]

Old, but still relevant topic. While I agree with the initial complaint to some degree, it has to be said (again) that the difficulty of the career mode is set to be challenging but not off-putting for a NEW player. People who spent hundreds of hours playing the game cannot be surprised that the game is not particularly challenging.

I am currently at the "mid-game" of playing the career for the second time, but this time I decided to be hard on myself. What this means?

I use a plethora of mods, all of which add more variety but no significant advantages to the game. All the parts added by mods, especially the engines, have been meticulously tested and tweaked to balance things out and suit my idea of challenge. This time I have also decided to go with the USI life support mod which should make interplanetary travel much more interesting (starving kerbals are killed, so no goofing around), and also got the research tree mod that significantly adds to the number of technology nodes, thus effectively increasing the amount of science required to unlock everything at least tenfold. I use the outer planets mod which adds new planets and moons, some of them ten times the distance from the Sun as Jool. I have turned on the G-force limit for Kerbals, somewhat reduced the abundance of ore and other materials, I have turned off the option to revert flights and also decided to only use quicksave / quickload in cases of bugs and crashes (haven't had any so far), meaning that whenever I goof and kill my kerbals just because I am a dum-dum, I just roll with it.

I have been playing this way for a couple of days now, the highest of my achievements being getting to Minmus with a remote controlled probe. In the meantime I permanently killed four pilots including Jeb and Valentina, destroyed dozens of expensive vehicles in test flights and stood on a verge of bankruptcy. I have learned to utilise the abort button (which I never did before), I have learned to put a parachute and a decoupling device onto every module and every cockpit, I have learned to carefully plan even the most banal of missions. And you know what? I feel good about myself for getting where I got so far, and I'm also really excited about the future interplanetary flights.

I haven't even used all the options to make my game more difficult. You could still set huge penalties to failing missions or even declining them, you could lower the gains from successfully finished contracts and set your ore abundance to zero, rendering all mining useless. All you have to decide is how much pain the game's gonna be. The possibilities are there.

The one thing I do agree with is the lack of a bigger reward at the end or on the most distant planets. I would not mind a storytelling version of the game, as a fourth addition to sandbox, science and career. Something along the lines of Matt Lowne's Green Harvest, but this time you and your Kerbals would play the main part. And the grand finale of the story would await you on the most distant planet or moon. In the end though, as in most open world or sandbox games, the journey is the goal. If you find the game lacking of goals, you have to make them yourself.

[tater]

On 4/28/2019 at 7:54 AM, Duck McFuddle said:

I'm going to keep this simple:

I dislike this idea.

Career mode is hard enough already, and KSP has difficulty controls. I find it hard enough to manage part size with ships in a lower-size VAB, and even just getting to orbit with the limited resources entertains me. I don't want career mode to be the "hard" mode of KSP - I want it to be another way to play the game, one with fun things like contracts and money and reputation. It doesn't need to be harder because it's original purpose wasn't to be hard, just a more diverse playing experience where you have to manage more resources.

Career mode isn't even slightly hard.

In addition to being impossible---to lose---career mode isn't a career. The trouble with career mode is that it gets easier, not harder as the game progresses. This is because the things that make real missions beyond LEO so hard are not part of KSP at all. If Mars was just a matter of dv, we could have gone there decades ago. Keeping people alive for a couple years, OTOH, is hard. Using systems that are fault tolerant, so that a single failure doesn't kill everyone... also hard.

This game absolutely needs those things in career mode.

On 5/10/2019 at 5:38 PM, Aelipse said:

Old, but still relevant topic. While I agree with the initial complaint to some degree, it has to be said (again) that the difficulty of the career mode is set to be challenging but not off-putting for a NEW player. People who spent hundreds of hours playing the game cannot be surprised that the game is not particularly challenging.

Good point, which is why in my (old) posts about this, I usually talk at least sometimes in terms of replay value. Since any such mode has diff level settings, those can always be adjusted for new players.

[aruoch]

16 hours ago, tater said:

Career mode isn't even slightly hard.

In addition to being impossible---to lose---career mode isn't a career. The trouble with career mode is that it gets easier, not harder as the game progresses. This is because the things that make real missions beyond LEO so hard are not part of KSP at all. If Mars was just a matter of dv, we could have gone there decades ago. Keeping people alive for a couple years, OTOH, is hard. Using systems that are fault tolerant, so that a single failure doesn't kill everyone... also hard.

This game absolutely needs those things in career mode.

Good point, which is why in my (old) posts about this, I usually talk at least sometimes in terms of replay value. Since any such mode has diff level settings, those can always be adjusted for new players.

personally i think they should make it easier to make very large craft, and start adding in contracts to do seriously large projects after the tech tree is unlocked. for instance landing 1000 tons of base on a planet.

 

also personally i think there should be a reason to have more space stations

[tater]

31 minutes ago, aruoch said:

personally i think they should make it easier to make very large craft, and start adding in contracts to do seriously large projects after the tech tree is unlocked. for instance landing 1000 tons of base on a planet.

 

also personally i think there should be a reason to have more space stations

Yeah, those are at least reasonable mission requests, too.

Currently the contracts are just dumb 99% of the time. Haul ore from X to Y, when moving ore out of a gravity well, then into another one makes exactly zero sense.

 

[aruoch]

8 minutes ago, tater said:

Yeah, those are at least reasonable mission requests, too.

Currently the contracts are just dumb 99% of the time. Haul ore from X to Y, when moving ore out of a gravity well, then into another one makes exactly zero sense.

 

personally i think the missions post-tech-tree-completion should build up to absolute megaprojects and once you transport, for instance, a massive base to laythe, the kerbals will start to grow a civilisation there.

 

eventually completing enough projects for the laythe colony, for instance, however you decide to make it (for instance this mission would already be accomplished for somebody like stratzenblitz who has 1500t of carrier landed) it will  cause the kerbals there to construct a stock laythe launch pad, although it will not function unless there is sufficient ore processing and power facility active before it is turned on.

 

the problem is they don't really seem to have much of a civilisation on their homeworld anyway so having them expanding after you do large missions makes little sense when they should maybe have a city on their homeworld first

also there should probably be some contracts related to getting to interstellar space with a voyager style mission, and for sure a future expansion should extend ion engines and add stuff like laser powered microsatelites for use in interstellar space, and obviously at some point they're going to need to add other stars.

similarly i also think there should be advanced options for asteroids, allowing the player to create an atmosphere inside a new far larger type. the ultimate achievement for KSP would be strapping fuel-mining asteroids to an atmosphere-adapted asteroid and blasting off into interstellar space. 

Edited May 15, 2019 by aruoch