Weather

[FireKerb]

17 hours ago, Cassel said:

I meant that it would be a good game that would increase the player's skills.

What game? KSP? I think it gives enough skills. If you want to land with crosswind, play a flight sim.

17 hours ago, Cassel said:

So what is the problem? Sometimes the wind would slightly change the course of the vehicle, sometimes a little more. The game would be more interesting because some things would be unpredictable. Just like in Diablo (or any other game) there are random dungeons and items so that the player can do several approaches with different characters and not get bored.

The point I made in my argument was that wind effecting landing would do practically nothing.

And if you want more planet variety, then having more surface features similar to the Greenoliths, where finding them would give you a reward (money, science, rep) would probably be the best way.

18 hours ago, Cassel said:

If time is a resource, the weather has a simple justification. If you are in a hurry, try to land in more difficult conditions, if you have a lot of time, wait for the moment when landing will be easier.
Weather effects should always be present in the game, the player would be able to choose the level of difficulty (their strength) with the help of a 50-150% slider.

I was talking about the balloons. All they do is lift up stuff. Not a lot of challenge.

18 hours ago, Cassel said:

I want the planets to have some life in them, I'm not talking about animals here, because it's a loss of CPU and memory, but weather phenomena could be explored, which in this game has a justification for exploration. After all, in a real space program, it's not about how much fuel we'll burn just about what we'll investigate and what we'll find out about distant places.

The problem is that weather that there are very little possible weathers. For example, on Duna, you have pretty much only two weathers - sandstorm and clear.

18 hours ago, Cassel said:

You could create some kind of passive mission, for example, drop a buoy in the area of X and take it away from the Y area in a week. In time, as you gather a lot of data from the planet, you can view the planet with its constant sea and air currents.

I would rather have some space scanning contracts and an improved Kerbnet first.

[weissel]

On 7/25/2018 at 2:08 PM, Cassel said:

I meant that it would be a good game that would increase the player's skills.

As if the learning curve of KSP is not steep enough for new players!  Yet another hurdle that turns out to be a nuisance.  Why not full n-body gravity?  That would increase the player's skills and be realistic and actually do something to the whole of the game except just in landing and takeoff at Kerbin, Eve, Jool (where you won't be landing anyway) and Laythe --- Duna has a so thin atmosphere that even very fast winds do little.  ("The Martian" (the movie) took an artistic license there, in the book it's "just" sandblasting from the storm that exceed the missions safety parameters.)

 

On 7/25/2018 at 2:08 PM, Cassel said:

So what is the problem? Sometimes the wind would slightly change the course of the vehicle, sometimes a little more. The game would be more interesting because some things would be unpredictable.

How about randomly exploding parts, failing engines or leaking tanks?  That can happen at any time in the flight and not just at landing, totally unpredictable, so you can have much much more replayability than a vehicle being slightly displaced.  Sorry, I don't buy it.

 

On 7/25/2018 at 2:08 PM, Cassel said:

It is like in KSP we have several characters (vehicles) and visit the planet (we visit the dungeons), but at the moment the planets are dead. Nothing changes, does not move, there are no random events that would increase the attractiveness of the game.
How many characters in Diablo would you check if each time the dungeons in the game were identical and would drop the exact same items each time? This is how in KSP works, after visiting each planet the game becomes boring, because it was all there. The fact that you use a slightly different vehicle does not change much.

If you can only come up with a few vehicles, all slightly different, the problem is your imagination.

Space History offers so many ideas, even if you just look at successful missions, never mind the failed ones, the ones that were never launched, the ones that were never built, ... and of course there is hard science fiction.  Have you ever heard of OTRAG, for example?

And of course you can use limits.  No solar cells.  No RTGs to Eeloo.  Use ion engines only after launch  (See the "Dawn" probe for a real life example).  Restrict your technology.  Use LKO construction to build your craft.  Compare the 3 proposed lunar landing methods (EOR, LOR, Direct Ascent) discussed back then by doing these missions and try to find the cheapest crafts that can do the job, or lightest ones on launchpad.

There are competitions on this forum where you can try to optimise for a specific tasks against other people --- goals you have never even thought of before.

And if that is not enough for you, there are a lot of mods, giving you new solar systems, new technology or a completely altered experience --- Realism Overhaul (RO) would be one big mod bundle, making engines realistic (real fuel and fuel choices, limited ignitions, ullage problems, many are not throttleable) and realistic mass rations for propellant tanks, realistic energy from solar panels, real jet engines and better aerodynamics, proper heat, ...).  Do add all recommendations (from proper reentry and real-life size solar system over lightspeed and comm delays to life support and failing parts).  You will find this is a totally different game.  And with RP-0 (Realistic Progression Zero) you do get a campaign mode similar to KSP, but actually using real engines and real solar system reality.

If that does not satisfy, there is the good, old BTSM (Better Than Starting Manned). [you need a KSP v 1.0.4 --- which is pretty trivial from the KSP website (if bought for download there): go to website, go to store, log in, my account, Download, legacy versions, copy the link under 1.0.5, paste it into your browser's address field and change the 5 to a 4 in the obvious place.  It'll download v 1.0.4. Of course checks if you have logged into the store and bought KSP --- that's why you need to log in.  There is no "security" or "personalisation"  in the download link itself, that is why it works.
For Steam, you might have to go properties|Beta and hope there is a 1.0.4 there.] 
You will have fun with a totally different game, challenges where you actually have to think, texts you actually have to read, where you get one try at many missions ... and a lot of new mission types. That is no longer your sandbox, that is a very focussed beginning and then really branching out once you reach the mid-game.  There are no dead ends.  You can recover if you lose all funds, though that is (on purpose) somewhat grindy.  You have to fly commercial missions to fund your science missions --- and having both of them in one launch is of course a good idea.  You deal with limited and heavy "batteries" (there is NO potato in there!!) and power-hungry transmissions and probe cores that do not restart if the power goes out (unless you have a Kerbal or another probe core active).  You will have fun controlling your early rockets with fins and winglets only, you will love and hate the aptly named "Death Wish", your first liquid fuel engine, which ... well, tends to overheat a bit, you will find out what an unpressurized cockpit is, how to point land and point drop, etc. etc. etc.  You will deal with pretty hard life support limits and flimsy reentry shields (do not reenter more than you absolutely must, and neither too fast nor too slow.  I mean it.)  You will have fun if you like a hard game which does not care all that much about "reality" as in "simulator", but cares a lot about progression and challenging and so on.  You are NOT to install any other than the required and listed optional mods, no Kerbal Engineer, no MechJeb, no other help.

Then there is SETI UbM (Unmanned before Manned) if you want something more up to date (for KSP version 1.3.x and a different focus).

 

In Diablo you have a few classes and some variants of them each.  These are hard limits.*/  KSP is so different, you might as well compare apples and sun rays.

 

On 7/25/2018 at 2:08 PM, Cassel said:

If time is a resource, the weather has a simple justification. If you are in a hurry, try to land in more difficult conditions, if you have a lot of time, wait for the moment when landing will be easier.
Weather effects should always be present in the game, the player would be able to choose the level of difficulty (their strength) with the help of a 50-150% slider.

Time is not a resource (no life support, infinite electricity with RTGs or solar cells).

Time the player has to spend waiting is a resource. Please explain why me waiting for better weather improves my game experience?  More than, say, unreliable engines?

 

On 7/25/2018 at 2:08 PM, Cassel said:

I want the planets to have some life in them, I'm not talking about animals here, because it's a loss of CPU and memory, but weather phenomena could be explored, which in this game has a justification for exploration. After all, in a real space program, it's not about how much fuel we'll burn just about what we'll investigate and what we'll find out about distant places.

Nice, so what does the weather do to the Mun and Minmus?  Dres?  Tylo?  Eeloo?  Moho?   How about ... well, basically all planets and moons, except for the few that have an atmosphere?

And if you want to investigate and find out about distant places, there are tons of games that have the focus on that.  They even have weather.  And much more to find than KSP will ever have.

Real space programs is designing instruments and hoping they arrive at far places and then battling to really understand what the data these instruments return actually mean, to balance out imperfections of the instruments, to handle noisy data, etc etc etc. The people doing that do tons of advanced maths and understand a lot of theories how the universe might work, and often enough spend a decade just with one instrument on one satellite.  KSP is meant to provide fun.  If real space programs are your kind of fun, you know where to apply.

 

On 7/25/2018 at 2:08 PM, Cassel said:

You could create some kind of passive mission, for example, drop a buoy in the area of X and take it away from the Y area in a week. In time, as you gather a lot of data from the planet, you can view the planet with its constant sea and air currents.
But to do this you would need a lot of buoys, weather stations on land and balloons exploring the atmosphere, weather satellites would also be useful. It would basically add another layer to the game and give justification for new missions that combine with each other in a logical whole.

Now, how comes the Kerbals never had a boat to drop buoys?  Building a space based position finding system --- or rather, launching and flying the satellites into the positions needed --- to have these buoys and balloons record where they are, and building a space based communication network so the buoys can report data gathered w/o a receiving station nearby --- or rather, launching and flying the satellites ... IIRC stuff like that is already a mission.  Remember, there are infinite Kerbals to do all kinds of stuff, but only the KSP --- and therefore you --- can put them into space.

So ... how about a space based navigation system around Mun, so if you drive your rover out of sight of the rocket, you can find your way back to the rocket?  Or for Duna?

Edited August 3, 2018 by weissel
Superfluous quote at the end - leftover from composing - removed

[Cheif Operations Director]

Small storms would be nice but I DO NOT want a full weather system it would lag way to much 

[KerbolExplorer]

11 hours ago, Cheif Operations Director said:

Small storms would be nice but I DO NOT want a full weather system it would lag way to much 

The Devs can optimize the game....

[weissel]

6 hours ago, KerbolExplorer said:

The Devs can optimize the game....

Sorry, there simply are things that are not susceptible to optimisation.  This may easily be one of them.

Actually I am sure it is one of them --- go ask a meteorologist about how they would love to have a more accurate simulation (by using smaller "blocks" they simulate) and thus a more accurate and longer usable weather prognosis.  A weather prognosis must be ready before the time when the weather is supposed to happen.  And they do put serious money into that problem and have been for decades.

You could have a film of weather patterns playing out, basically pre-rendered, but that would be very repetitive weather ...