Let's Rebalance the Tech Tree

[Pthigrivi]

Yeah, weirdly the 1.25m tri-coupler is at 90, the bi-coupler at 160 and the quad is at 300. All of the 2.5m multi-couplers are up at 550 which is kind of crazy. I think they could all live at level 90, 160 for the 2.5m multi-couplers at the latest.

Does anyone have strong feelings about the plane parts? I really don't mess around with them much until its SSTO time.

Edited October 25, 2017 by Pthigrivi

[Tyko]

4 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Yeah, weirdly the 1.25m tri-coupler is at 90, the bi-coupler at 160 and the quad is at 300. All of the 2.5m multi-couplers are up at 550 which is kind of crazy. I think they could all live at level 90, 160 for the 2.5m multi-couplers at the latest.

Does anyone have strong feelings about the plane parts? I really don't mess around with them much until its SSTO time.

Yea, this makes sense...all of the 1.25m at 90 and all of the 2.5m when 2.5m tanks become available. I don't use plane parts either, so can't help you there. If you want to make a shot at this, I'd be willing to help write the configs.

[Pthigrivi]

Yeah might be a good idea since my whole crowdsourcing idea has fallen a little flat haha

[Rocket In My Pocket]

5 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Yeah, weirdly the 1.25m tri-coupler is at 90, the bi-coupler at 160 and the quad is at 300. All of the 2.5m multi-couplers are up at 550 which is kind of crazy. I think they could all live at level 90, 160 for the 2.5m multi-couplers at the latest.

Does anyone have strong feelings about the plane parts? I really don't mess around with them much until its SSTO time.

I agree that the couplers should come in order, Ie. Bi then Tri, then Quad.

My personal opinion about the Plane parts is they are good where they are, you can get them early if you want, or ignore them completely depending on your playstyle/preferences.

[KSK]

Full disclosure - it's not too much of an exaggeration to say that spaceplanes killed the game for me, so I'm not exactly unbiased when it comes to plane parts. With that said, from what I recall of the early plane part nodes, they're a mess. The Aviation node for example- if I remember rightly - gives you Mk1 fuselage parts combined with Mk 0 (Juno sized) engines and air intakes.

Given that working planes are already significantly harder to build than rockets, I would have thought that the first plane part node should include the requisite parts to make a simple 'inline' plane with a Wheesley on the back, fuel tanks to suit, an inline cockpit and an air intake on the front. The neophyte plane builder would then still have to worry about putting wings and other control surfaces in the right place, contend with unneccessarily fiddly undercarriage parts, get the CoM,CoL balance right and, in all probability deal with a runway that appears to have been freshly bombed. However, they could at least reliably put a working fuselage together without having to deal with the added 'fun' of wedging Juno sized engine parts onto an otherwise Wheesley sized fuselage and making sure the off-centre thrust balances nicely so that their lashed together contraption stands a fighting chance of getting down the aforementioned freshly bombed runway without turning donuts, turning turtle or exploding for any number of other 'hilarious' reasons.

On a quick review of the remaining aircraft tech nodes, there are a fair few parts in there that I'm not familiar with so I'm not the best person to be commenting on the later nodes. That first one though is dreadful. I would merge Aviation with Aerodynamics and throw in the first lot of retractable undercarriage parts too. Yes, that's a lot of pieces to contend with at one go but at least you've got everything you need to build functioning aircraft from the outset. 

[Pthigrivi]

Haha that rant is great, KSK. Its true though, I think there are a number of places where nodes should be broken up and reconsolidated.

[Lord Aurelius]

I've put a lot of thought into this off and on since before 1.0. I need to dig out my old tech tree spreadsheet and update it, but here's a (relatively) quick overview of the balance I would like to see. Note that in some cases I also advocate for rebalancing some of the parts to make them better fit with everything else.

1. I very much like Unmanned Before Manned, but for the sake of the players who like starting out with Kerbals, have the Mk1 capsule and Stayputnik available from the start. To avoid needing batteries right away, all the probe cores should be rebalanced with much better batteries than they have now. Also, Stayputnik desperately needs SAS.

2. Starting engine should NOT be an SRB that flings the capsule straight up with enough force to crush the occupant, especially since the game doesn't really communicate how to adjust the thrust limiter. The flea right now is useless after the first flight anyways since it's completely outclassed by the RT-10, to give it more utility it could be worked into a vacuum SRB with high vacuum ISP before the other upper stage engines are unlocked. Actually, the starting engine and fuel tank could be the Reliant with the 1.25m long fuel tank so the player doesn't need to stack excessive numbers of smaller tanks right at the start, and the progression would be in terms of adding an upper stage with an appropriately sized fuel tank and engine. Not to mention that it would actually have much more realistic rocket proportions than a flea plus capsule. The starting node should also have steerable fins (although their cost desperately needs to come down, 4 fins costs a lot more than the starting rocket engine...).

3. Like in the discussion above, larger fuel tanks and clustering adapters should be unlocked before larger engines so the progression would be through adding more engines until better ones become available. Engine costs should be significantly increased, they should be one of the most expensive parts of any rocket. Probe cores and capsules should also be quite expensive.

4. Electric parts (batteries, solar, probe cores) should be available sooner. Also includes electric rover wheels. The remote guidance system probe cores should be available MUCH sooner, even before the other probe cores past the stayputnik instead of shoved at the end of the tech tree like they are now.

5. Science parts should be available sooner. Nothing should be unlocked past the 300 science cost node. Thermometer and barometer should be available from the start, accelerometer, gravimeter and mystery goo should be available relatively soon after. Mystery goo desperately needs an inline part model. Materials bay and atmosphere scanner should be available a little later, but not terribly so, about the time the player is expected to land on the mun or send their first interplanetary probe. Experiments that are just data (temperature, pressure, acceleration, gravity, atmosphere scan) should be transmittable with 100% efficiency. EVA and crew reports in low orbit should be swapped, so players don't have to hop in and out of their capsule constantly to get all the biomes. Science lab should be last science part to be unlocked.

6. Basic structural parts should be unlocked fairly early. Also, utility parts like ladders and lights should be available near the beginning.

7. Aircraft should be available right after the start in a series of parallel nodes than can safely be ignored if the player isn't interested in aircraft.

8. End-game parts should be things like the Vector, Mammoth, RAPIER, ion engine, nuclear engine, etc since they enable the largest/most advanced craft designs.

Sorry for the rambling and not completely organized points, but hopefully you get the idea of what I'm going after. I'll see if I can update those spreadsheets to give everyone an idea of what I'm looking at, along with notes on part/science changes. Like @tater said, all these things are linked together and unfortunately most of the values here are still just placeholders that don't seem to have been put in with much thought.

[Pthigrivi]

7 hours ago, Lord Aurelius said:

Also, Stayputnik desperately needs SAS.

I know there was a lot of back and forth in the early days when they were balancing probes, and Im not sure they got it 100% right. Im fine with the octo2 not having torque as a trade off for weight and versatility, but the stayputinik comes so early its probably more forgiving for new players to have more control.

7 hours ago, Lord Aurelius said:

The flea right now is useless after the first flight anyways since it's completely outclassed by the RT-10, 

The flea is kind of an interesting one. My understanding is it came about as a result of play-testing, in which first time players would almost invariably put a capsule on an RT-10 for their first launch, go straight up, but on the way down the chute would rip off and their first experience with KSP would be Jeb's fiery end. Im guessing increasing the speed tolerance of the chutes created other balance problems, so they opted for a smaller starter SRB. 

7 hours ago, Lord Aurelius said:

4. Electric parts (batteries, solar, probe cores) should be available sooner. Also includes electric rover wheels. 

Totally agree. 

7 hours ago, Lord Aurelius said:

5. Science parts should be available sooner. Nothing should be unlocked past the 300 science cost node. Thermometer and barometer should be available from the start, accelerometer, gravimeter and mystery goo should be available relatively soon after. Mystery goo desperately needs an inline part model. Materials bay and atmosphere scanner should be available a little later, but not terribly so, about the time the player is expected to land on the mun or send their first interplanetary probe. Experiments that are just data (temperature, pressure, acceleration, gravity, atmosphere scan) should be transmittable with 100% efficiency. EVA and crew reports in low orbit should be swapped, so players don't have to hop in and out of their capsule constantly to get all the biomes. Science lab should be last science part to be unlocked.

Yeah this goes to a deeper question about generalized balance and game flow. Though the science container has reduced a great deal of the click-grind we used to have I tend to agree with almost all of your other suggestions. I might only augment by suggesting 100% efficiency with full signal, as this puts trade-offs on the table in terms of transmitters and weight. The EVA/Crew report thing is another area where theres some grind left, and to my mind the best way to fix it is to make biomes indiscernible on EVA from orbit. So you can still do an EVA and get "EVA report from low over Kerbin" and "- high above Kerbin" but not "- low over the Mun's Farside Crater" For that EVA you should have to land. This does shift the balance though, and to make sample return missions more competitive you'd want to boost the value of samples and surface EVAs. 

I also tend to agree with shifting the experiments up, but this will also change the overall pace of the game. I, personally, don't think its a problem if players can advance through the tech tree faster, but we don't want it to be possible to unlock everything after the first munlanding. We also don't want to overwhelm players with lots of parts they don't quite need yet. It should be tailored around: 1) Getting accustomed to suborbital flight, 2) Getting into orbit, 3) Exploring the Kerbin system, 4) Building space stations, 5) Exploring other planets, and 6) Max out and late game interplanetary missions, bases, etc. I honestly don't think we're far off on 1-4, pacing wise. The big problem I see is that so few players are going interplanetary, which means they aren't learning about what goes into it and all of those resources are largely wasted. Most of that is probably a lack of in-game information resources, namely delta-v readouts and transfer orbit calculators. If those were in place I think allowing players to unlock the tree faster would only be a benefit to providing players with tools they need to explore deeper into the system.
 

Edited October 26, 2017 by Pthigrivi

[Lord Aurelius]

7 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

The flea is kind of an interesting one. My understanding is it came about as a result of play-testing, in which first time players would almost invariably put a capsule on an RT-10 for their first launch, go straight up, but on the way down the chute would rip off and their first experience with KSP would be Jeb's fiery end. Im guessing increasing the speed tolerance of the chutes created other balance problems, so they opted for a smaller starter SRB. 

I vaguely remember that discussion. The RT-10 was definitely overkill as the first booster for the same reasons I mentioned about the Flea crushing the occupant, only to a larger degree. It seems like the Flea is a band-aid to the problem of the game not having a lifter engine between the 0.625m Spark and the 1.25m Swivel, which is quite a large gap. It sounds like they're adding some new engines to address these issues in the expansion, but it's annoying to have to pay for DLC to get fixes for problems. Back to my original issue with the Flea, right now it's a one-trick pony for your first career flight.

 

7 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Yeah this goes to a deeper question about generalized balance and game flow. Though the science container has reduced a great deal of the click-grind we used to have I tend to agree with almost all of your other suggestions. I might only augment by suggesting 100% efficiency with full signal, as this puts trade-offs on the table in terms of transmitters and weight. The EVA/Crew report thing is another area where theres some grind left, and to my mind the best way to fix it is to make biomes indiscernible on EVA from orbit. So you can still do an EVA and get "EVA report from low over Kerbin" and "- high above Kerbin" but not "- low over the Mun's Farside Crater" For that EVA you should have to land. This does shift the balance though, and to make sample return missions more competitive you'd want to boost the value of samples and surface EVAs. 

I didn't mention it earlier, but I made a simple mod awhile back to switch those very things so the EVA report was low space only (like the crew report is now) and the Crew report was biome dependent (I haven't done a good job of keeping it updated though, kind of got burned out on KSP when it went 1.0 with all its problems and unfinished content, and got tired of having to mess around with mods to fix the problems). Sample returns should definitely be worth a lot more due to the extra difficulty involved. Also, we need some sort of camera experiment besides the sentinel that functions similarly to a crew report for probes. High science value, but a LOT of data to transmit.

 

6 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

I also tend to agree with shifting the experiments up, but this will also change the overall pace of the game. I, personally, don't think its a problem if players can advance through the tech tree faster, but we don't want it to be possible to unlock everything after the first munlanding. We also don't want to overwhelm players with lots of parts they don't quite need yet. It should be tailored around: 1) Getting accustomed to suborbital flight, 2) Getting into orbit, 3) Exploring the Kerbin system, 4) Building space stations, 5) Exploring other planets, and 6) Max out and late game interplanetary missions, bases, etc. I honestly don't think we're far off on 1-4, pacing wise. The big problem I see is that so few players are going interplanetary, which means they aren't learning about what goes into it and all of those resources are largely wasted. Most of that is probably a lack of in-game information resources, namely delta-v readouts and transfer orbit calculators. If those were in place I think allowing players to unlock the tree faster would only be a benefit to providing players with tools they need to explore deeper into the system.

Agreed. Especially with the part about the game not providing enough information. I didn't really enjoy KSP (other than messing around for laughs) until I discovered MechJeb. It's telling that KerbalEDU has these readouts, but for inexplicable reasons they haven't made their way into the base game.

 

Another thing I forgot to mention in my earlier post is that to really properly balance the game we need some sort of life support. Kerballed flights have always been much more effective than probes since the extra weight (especially if you're using the small lander can) is negligible, you get access to some of the best science experiments, your kerbal can reset experiements or repair things depending on their class, not to mention the infinite EVA fuel. The hiring cost isn't really even an issue with the loads of rescue missions I'm always getting so I never have to actually hire any, and if I wanted to send one on a one-way mission, it wouldn't even be an issue from a gameplay standpoint since there's no penalties for stranding or killing kerbals.

The com network for probes provides an interesting challenge, but it also ultimately makes probes even less desirable. Life support could provide a proper balance to manned missions versus probes and make the progression you described of going from suborbital to orbital to stations to exploring other planets even more interesting. Just like the com network feature, make it an option that can be enabled on a per-game basis so players who like things the way they are can keep playing, but players who want proper balance can have it. Apologies for getting so far off the tech-tree topic, but like has been mentioned, the tech tree is just one piece of the larger overall balance puzzle and all the pieces need to be fit with each other.

[Eric S]

21 hours ago, Lord Aurelius said:

Back to my original issue with the Flea, right now it's a one-trick pony for your first career flight.

Well, two trick pony, really, it's also insanely handy for those "splashed down" part tests.

Though I have to admit, that's about the biggest point of disagreement I have with you.  Every part pack I have that isn't about functionality is about filling in gaps.  1.875m and 0.625 tanks/engines, 2 kerbal command pods, stuff like that.

I agree with much of your analysis of the tech tree as well, and would like to add one gripe.  We shouldn't be getting 0.625 engines/tanks at the same tech level as 2.5m ones.  I don't think we need to go full on "sounding rockets first, then 1.25m parts" but I think most of the 0.625m parts should be introduced along side the corresponding 1.25m parts at the latest, except where it could be argued that the part is complex enough that miniaturization could be an issue.  So sure, high tech probe cores can come to 1.25m first.  But miniaturizing engines and tanks to 0.625m shouldn't be an issue, and I shouldn't have to resort to tweakscale to get something as simple as a 0.625m aerodynamic nosecone.  Heck, having 0.625 decouplers/seperators come after the 1.25m ones is a royal pain at times.

 

[Tyko]

On 10/27/2017 at 12:48 PM, Eric S said:

I agree with much of your analysis of the tech tree as well, and would like to add one gripe.  We shouldn't be getting 0.625 engines/tanks at the same tech level as 2.5m ones.  I don't think we need to go full on "sounding rockets first, then 1.25m parts" but I think most of the 0.625m parts should be introduced along side the corresponding 1.25m parts at the latest, except where it could be argued that the part is complex enough that miniaturization could be an issue.  So sure, high tech probe cores can come to 1.25m first.  But miniaturizing engines and tanks to 0.625m shouldn't be an issue, and I shouldn't have to resort to tweakscale to get something as simple as a 0.625m aerodynamic nosecone.  Heck, having 0.625 decouplers/seperators come after the 1.25m ones is a royal pain at times.

 

I have mixed feelings about this. In some ways it would make sense that .625 tanks, et al. came out sooner. On the other hand, I kind of like that my early probes are big, clunky and less efficient while my later probes get to be a lot smaller and more efficient - this feels right to me and the current tech tree supports that.

[Eric S]

23 hours ago, Tyko said:

I have mixed feelings about this. In some ways it would make sense that .625 tanks, et al. came out sooner. On the other hand, I kind of like that my early probes are big, clunky and less efficient while my later probes get to be a lot smaller and more efficient - this feels right to me and the current tech tree supports that.

 

If the craft get smaller because the payload gets smaller, I'll agree.  However, they're mostly getting smaller because I'm not getting stuck with having 10 times the TWR  and three times the delta-v I want.  Early stock probes are like crushing walnuts with a sledgehammer.

[tater]

For the "tech tree" paradigm to make any sense, all other terrible career issues being unchanged, there needs to be trade-offs in design choices, which means there needs to be failure modes in some fashion.

Anathema to @SQUAD, except in the add-on coming soon, the chance of failure---and different chances/modes for different tech---makes choosing tech, or indeed a path of tech more useful/important to gameplay. Additionally, there could be things for engines like throttle depth, and restarts. Yeah, starts looking like RO, huh?

The point is that you then get meaningful trade-offs. You want high I_sp, but then boil-off is a thing, or you would prefer pushing dev on better and better kerlox engines (say like Merlins), but need to instead make some hypergolic, because you need the Munar ascent stage to work 100% so Val isn't stranded. With more choices, the tech tree becomes more of a gameplay issue, instead of just unlocking everything.

Honestly, after you can get something reliably to orbit with some dv and EC left over, career ceases to have any challenge, at that point the funds roll in with science, and the tree is unlocked in no time.

 

[Tyko]

1 hour ago, tater said:

For the "tech tree" paradigm to make any sense, all other terrible career issues being unchanged, there needs to be trade-offs in design choices, which means there needs to be failure modes in some fashion.

Anathema to @SQUAD, except in the add-on coming soon, the chance of failure---and different chances/modes for different tech---makes choosing tech, or indeed a path of tech more useful/important to gameplay. Additionally, there could be things for engines like throttle depth, and restarts. Yeah, starts looking like RO, huh?

The point is that you then get meaningful trade-offs. You want high I_sp, but then boil-off is a thing, or you would prefer pushing dev on better and better kerlox engines (say like Merlins), but need to instead make some hypergolic, because you need the Munar ascent stage to work 100% so Val isn't stranded. With more choices, the tech tree becomes more of a gameplay issue, instead of just unlocking everything.

Honestly, after you can get something reliably to orbit with some dv and EC left over, career ceases to have any challenge, at that point the funds roll in with science, and the tree is unlocked in no time.

 

I think all of that is interesting, but I'm not sure the base game needs it all. I remember my first months playing the game and it was already overwhelming enough with the choice already included.

You already get meaningful tradeoffs - vacuum vs ASL engines, Power vs efficiency, weight vs power, LFO/Mono/Nuke/Ion, etc. This is all old hat for you, but you've been playing the game since...when?

Reorganizing the tech tree a bit does not offer nearly the level of complexity that adding new fuel types, hardware failures, Throttling, etc. That's all perfectly fine for modded games, but if players give up due to complexity before they even reach orbit then it's going to hard to grow the base.

[tater]

6 minutes ago, Tyko said:

I think all of that is interesting, but I'm not sure the base game needs it all. I remember my first months playing the game and it was already overwhelming enough with the choice already included.

You already get meaningful tradeoffs - vacuum vs ASL engines, Power vs efficiency, weight vs power, LFO/Mono/Nuke/Ion, etc. This is all old hat for you, but you've been playing the game since...when?

Reorganizing the tech tree a bit does not offer nearly the level of complexity that adding new fuel types, hardware failures, Throttling, etc. That's all perfectly fine for modded games, but if players give up due to complexity before they even reach orbit then it's going to hard to grow the base.

There are already 3 modes of play, Science, career, and sandbox.

There is no reason why there cannot be curated levels of play. Career in Easy could remove the failures, and abbreviate the choices if need be.

 

[Tyko]

1 minute ago, tater said:

There are already 3 modes of play, Science, career, and sandbox.

There is no reason why there cannot be curated levels of play. Career in Easy could remove the failures, and abbreviate the choices if need be.

 

fair point     It'll be interesting to see what comes out of Making History. Adding HydroLox engines to the core game might be a bit OP. Once I learned how to build efficient rockets it became really easy to SSTO using the stock solar system.

[tater]

True, the mini system is a major problem with KSP.

[Tyko]

18 hours ago, tater said:

True, the mini system is a major problem with KSP.

haha...I don't see it as a problem per se. I think the decision to shrink the solar system was brilliant - it let's players experience all the cool parts of getting into space with less time spent on the boring middle parts - I love that launches take 4 -5 minutes instead of 10-12 minutes. I've been playing a 2.5x game and the only detractor for me is how much time I spend watching rockets launch. It was fun the first 1000 times, after that... 

Anyway, back to the topic at hand...

Edited November 1, 2017 by Tyko

[tater]

It was a matter of rounding errors as I recall that drove the tiny system, not any intent.

[Helmetman]

I can really relate to @Tyko Playing KSP when you first start and the current career is challenging in it's own way. In fact, it is fun. Not anymore, that time is gone.
But I can still relate to this fact, and I know newbs are in the same boat nowadays. If it gets old for them, they start modding their career. Although I'm still disappointed about the options for career so far given with mods.

However, I find the complexity of core elements in the game a bit on the lower end. The tiny solar system, lesser souposphere, comnet, part specs and career itself ofcourse. So I wouldn't call on Squad for greater career gameplay. Creating a 'gameplay' is different then coding some parts or system together, it requires great creativity and the free time endurance to set it up properly. This is also why it's hard to create a sound career overhaul for modders because inducing a 'best' gameplay is just as hard to construct then to program it.

Then comes the fact that everyone wants something else out of career. Someone wants to start with probes, some with planes.
So there can't be 'a' tech tree rebalance, because to which forum users criteria will it be optimized, yours, mine?
So as long as we're not getting to a compromise but endlessly argue to what it should be we will always be suggesting that each gets their way.
Which can only mean that the aftermath of such a discussion revolves around concluding we need a complete makeover, rather then just some persons likable rebalance.

And having mentioned the lesser complexity of Squad design elements I wouldn't ask them to code it. The modding community does this better.

[Tyko]

Yea @Helmetman you raise some good points. If there is a tech tree rebalance it really should be targeted at making the learning curve as simple as possible for new players. To your point, many experienced players are going to be using mods and/or tweaking the tree to their own interests.

It may be almost there. Even looking at it from that perspective there are still things I'd change, but the changes wouldn't be as sweeping as they would be if I was just picking what I wanted.

[tater]

Why would the tech tree be designed for new players exclusively? Everyone can only play a first career game once, at which point everything is a replay. This is why I have often advocated randomized solar systems/scales, since once you know what it takes to do X in stock, it never changes. The lack of complexity in parts (no design trade offs) means that this is a static solution.

The economics of career are totally borked, so that's a non-starter. Time is meaningless, so there is no urgency driving perhaps sub-optimal choices (the real space race was more dangerous that needed because they were both rushing). The mini scale also cripples one of the most important aspects of the game in terms of rocket design gameplay. Most players apparently don't leave the Kerbin SoI much. The Mun, like the Moon, is the major target. In stock the Mun is trivial, and only one mission profile makes gameplay sense. Scaling up the system such that the Mun has multiple mission modes would be a huge gameplay improvement (Kerbin Orbit Rendezvous, Munar Orbit Rendezvous, and Direct Ascent). They would need pros and cons, too.

Another problem with career/tech is that KSP gets easier as the game progresses. The hardest time in all KSP play would be a new player deciding to start with career, at which point the "max Q" of gameplay is some launch after 2, and before 20, maybe. Everything after that has zero change of ending the game (and it's hard to "lose" ever, regardless).

[DAL59]

1 hour ago, tater said:

only one mission profile makes gameplay sense.

I disagree.  You can upgrade the VAB and make a huge direct ascent rocket, or do Kerbin Orbit Rendezvous(smaller rockets, but docking is needed).   Or preposition a lander in munar orbit(medium rockets, but no docking).  Or apollo style.  I don't think that direct ascent is actual always the best in ksp.  

2 hours ago, Helmetman said:

So there can't be 'a' tech tree rebalance, because to which forum users criteria will it be optimized, yours, mine?

I agree.  I think that maybe Squad or some modder should make a visual tech tree editor.  

[tater]

39 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

I disagree.  You can upgrade the VAB and make a huge direct ascent rocket, or do Kerbin Orbit Rendezvous(smaller rockets, but docking is needed).   Or preposition a lander in munar orbit(medium rockets, but no docking).  Or apollo style.  I don't think that direct ascent is actual always the best in ksp.  

This is about career mode.

Explore the Mun is the first goal the player is given after achieving orbit (a flyby and return). They've added rendezvous, and other missions to the timeline, but the bottom line is that you'll like have what, some 45s unlocked by the time you send crew since you don't get a probe core till 90?

1st flight a hop with flea. 2d flight suborbital/orbital, 3d flight orbital for sure. Somewhere soon after the 4th flight, you land Jeb. You'd have to be intentionally slacking to wait for docking ports to land on the Mun in KSP.

More importantly, there is no NEED in KSP. Munar landers never need to be staged in stock. The extra mass of a lander itself is sort of wasted, since direct ascent is trivial. Look at the load screen crash. A mk1-2 with a tank and legs.

[Tyko]

35 minutes ago, tater said:

This is about career mode.

Explore the Mun is the first goal the player is given after achieving orbit (a flyby and return). They've added rendezvous, and other missions to the timeline, but the bottom line is that you'll like have what, some 45s unlocked by the time you send crew since you don't get a probe core till 90?

1st flight a hop with flea. 2d flight suborbital/orbital, 3d flight orbital for sure. Somewhere soon after the 4th flight, you land Jeb. You'd have to be intentionally slacking to wait for docking ports to land on the Mun in KSP.

More importantly, there is no NEED in KSP. Munar landers never need to be staged in stock. The extra mass of a lander itself is sort of wasted, since direct ascent is trivial. Look at the load screen crash. A mk1-2 with a tank and legs.

If you're playing stock career mode you also have parts test, rescue and Kerbin surface exploration missions. these provide more money and sometimes more science too. Just running around KSC can return hundreds of science points - this got so bad that I've actually made house rule against collecting KSC science except for Launch Pad and Runway. I'll fly a dozen missions or more before I get to Kerbin orbit and then many more before I'm heading to the Mun.