What can be improved in the easter eggs?

[Jeb, The Lonely Kerbonaut]

In the last times i was seeing the easter eggs in the game, and i noticied some things that can be improved in this area, in my personal opinion

1-The easter eggs on Kerbin: There some easter eggs that have to be replaced (like the monolit in a mountain near KSC that is in the underground in the default terrain configurations), and the Island Airfield could be buyed and make part of KSC, and could be evolved with much money, an turned into a second runway, where you can launch planes.

2-The easter eggs in Mun: The Mun arch could be bigger in my opinion, and the Neil Armstrong memorial could be redone, smaller and with a good detalied Lunar Module. 

3-The Mohole: The Mohole could be bigger, less tapering and less bugged (in the @Matt Lowne Mohole base video a report inside the Mohole sayed that the ship was in the south pole of Moho, and the Mohole is in the north pole.

4-Easter eggs in Duna: The face on Duna could have a own biome, with own reports. I even imagined a EVA report in the face:

"You see a kerbal face in the rock, and you start to think if the trip don't let your brain crazy."

The Curiosity camera could be in the ground, and could even be replaced with a complete real-scale Curiosity. 

5-The dead Kraken in Bop: The dead Kraken could be bigger, with the 2 eyes in his face, lying, and not dead, but just sleepening

6-Easter eggs in general: The easter eggs could be in every planet and moon, and could exists a purpose to visit they, like a contract to explore the easter eggs when they are only a anomally in the Kerbnet, or a reward for discovering they, like when you discover the Island Airfield.

7-Easter eggs that could be in the game again: All of the easter eggs that was removed, like the SSTV Signal Piramid in Duna, or the Carl Sagan face.

And for you, what can be improved in the easter eggs?

[DAL59]

45 minutes ago, Jeb, The Lonely Kerbonaut said:

SSTV Signal Piramid

That is still there isn't it?  There is also an unconfirmed SSTV signal at 10,000 petameters.  

 

46 minutes ago, Jeb, The Lonely Kerbonaut said:

The Mohole could be bigger, less tapering and less bugged

The bugs are part of the fun.  

[Spricigo]

1 hour ago, Jeb, The Lonely Kerbonaut said:

6-Easter eggs in general: The easter eggs could be in every planet and moon, and could exists a purpose to visit they, like a contract to explore the easter eggs when they are only a anomally in the Kerbnet, or a reward for discovering they, like when you discover the Island Airfield.

That coud be interesting. Contracts to find the anomalies with the kerbnet, and once those are complete contract yo visit it.

[Jas0n]

Personally I would like there to be some kind of a narrative that ties the anomalies together. Maybe as a modded contract "quest line"? 

 

[[insert_name_here]]

1 hour ago, Jas0n said:

Personally I would like there to be some kind of a narrative that ties the anomalies together. Maybe as a modded contract "quest line"? 

 

Definitely.

 

3 hours ago, Jeb, The Lonely Kerbonaut said:

6-Easter eggs in general: The easter eggs could be in every planet and moon, and could exists a purpose to visit they, like a contract to explore the easter eggs when they are only a anomally in the Kerbnet, or a reward for discovering they, like when you discover the Island Airfield.

I think anomaly exploring contracts are a great idea. If you've found an anomaly but haven't explored it yet, you have a chance of getting a contract that asks you to explore it.

 

"We've noticed that you have found a strange object at this point. We would like to find out more and would pay you to send a craft to investigate."

[NSEP]

I think we could have a little more easter eggs that would leave clues to a big fan conspiracy, that would be fun right?

[Superfluous J]

8 hours ago, Jas0n said:

Personally I would like there to be some kind of a narrative that ties the anomalies together. Maybe as a modded contract "quest line"? 

 

If only someone made one of those...

Okay it's not a full quest with all the anomalies, but I found the monolith quest line to be enjoyable.

[Mr. Peabody]

The stock easter eggs are pretty good as they are. I can't imagine many changes that would be for the better apart from easter egg biomes and contracts as stated previously. SSTV signal hill is still in game if I'm not mistaken.

[MinimalMinmus]

How about that: the quest line starts at the first Mun orbit. At this point, you get a special notification: "We've detected an anomalous geological activity at three points around the equator of the Mun. Further investigations will be needed".

Then, you get a special contract: if you manage to bring a fairly heavy device (say 2 tons, enough to be challenging for beginners) to the surface near one of the arches, you will get some science, and the coordinates of several other anomalies across the Kerbolar system will be revealed.

From this, you will get three types of quests.

1) Black monolith quests

By completing these quests, you can unlock previously hidden science nodes, for brand new parts. All these nodes cost 2000 to get. For example, you have "High efficiency solid fuel" (2.5 m SRBs and super separatron), "Hypersonic aerospace tech" (2.5 m RAPIER, a scramjet), "Advanced efficient drives" (2.5 m NERV, 1.25 m dawn), "Ultra heavy rocketry" (5 m parts), and so on. There is only one of these available per planetary system, and the Jool mission involves doing a Jool-5.

2) Miscellaneous anomalies quests

One of these is available by celestial body. It involves very random challenges such as "Entering the Mohole", "Impacting the Kraken", "Kerboldiving", and so on. By completing these, you are awarded a good amount of science and cash, more than most contracts.

3) The final quest (just like the original plan)

This quest is available once you completed all others. It involves the green monoliths. What to do with them? A grand tour, no less! You have to get to all of them in the Kerbolar system. If you complete this contract, you get showered by vast amounts of money and science, and... that's right. A distant planet is revealed!

 

This planet is VERY far (think OPM's Plock-far) and on a very inclined orbit. If you manage to land a kerbal on it, congrats! Wehrner explains you what was this planet, based on your discoveries. You won KSP!... in a way.

[Just Jim]

I use the stock Easter Eggs in Emiko Station a lot, and I wouldn't want them changed (again) if possible... otherwise I have to think of a reason in the story.

However, I wouldn't complain if I had a new few ones to play with... and what I'd really love to see added are some underwater Easter eggs... now that we can build submarines... or even some underwater scatter objects... maybe some seaweed, instead of trees.

[MinimalMinmus]

4 minutes ago, Just Jim said:

I use the stock Easter Eggs in Emiko Station a lot, and I wouldn't want them changed (again) if possible... otherwise I have to think of a reason in the story.

However, I wouldn't complain if I had a new few ones to play with... and what I'd really love to see added are some underwater Easter eggs... now that we can build submarines... or even some underwater scatter objects... maybe some seaweed, instead of trees.

For me, every single bodies should have at least one unique Easter egg. This list is only about those which don't have any unique ones.

-Eve: an elusive object deep inside the explodium sea, possibly a Venera lander.

-Gilly: a crashed brown magic boulder

-Minmus: very faint details on the flats, that are revealed using SCANsat or else.

-Ike: The true, and best magic boulder is back, with a vengeance! It can also be moved, but it is even bigger than a class-E asteroid. However, it seems to have a HUGE reserve in ore. Oh, and a monolith, too.

-Dres: It has true rings now! You can't see them until you reached it however.

-Jool: a platform, suspended in the air, on which you can actually land on!

-Laythe: the Huygens Lander, in the Sagan sea

-Pol: the Cassini probe in orbit (first seen as an unknown object)

-Eeloo: the New horizons probe in orbit.

[linuxgurugamer]

On 11/2/2017 at 6:28 PM, MinimalMinmus said:

How about that: the quest line starts at the first Mun orbit. At this point, you get a special notification: "We've detected an anomalous geological activity at three points around the equator of the Mun. Further investigations will be needed".

Then, you get a special contract: if you manage to bring a fairly heavy device (say 2 tons, enough to be challenging for beginners) to the surface near one of the arches, you will get some science, and the coordinates of several other anomalies across the Kerbolar system will be revealed.

From this, you will get three types of quests.

1) Black monolith quests

By completing these quests, you can unlock previously hidden science nodes, for brand new parts. All these nodes cost 2000 to get. For example, you have "High efficiency solid fuel" (2.5 m SRBs and super separatron), "Hypersonic aerospace tech" (2.5 m RAPIER, a scramjet), "Advanced efficient drives" (2.5 m NERV, 1.25 m dawn), "Ultra heavy rocketry" (5 m parts), and so on. There is only one of these available per planetary system, and the Jool mission involves doing a Jool-5.

2) Miscellaneous anomalies quests

One of these is available by celestial body. It involves very random challenges such as "Entering the Mohole", "Impacting the Kraken", "Kerboldiving", and so on. By completing these, you are awarded a good amount of science and cash, more than most contracts.

3) The final quest (just like the original plan)

This quest is available once you completed all others. It involves the green monoliths. What to do with them? A grand tour, no less! You have to get to all of them in the Kerbolar system. If you complete this contract, you get showered by vast amounts of money and science, and... that's right. A distant planet is revealed!

 

This planet is VERY far (think OPM's Plock-far) and on a very inclined orbit. If you manage to land a kerbal on it, congrats! Wehrner explains you what was this planet, based on your discoveries. You won KSP!... in a way.

This sounds like a planet pack of one planet and a fairly extensive contract pack

[MinimalMinmus]

2 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

This sounds like a planet pack of one planet and a fairly extensive contract pack

Indeed it would be. Since you're a modder, do you know how hard would it be? (Not that I could do it myself TBH)

[linuxgurugamer]

3 hours ago, MinimalMinmus said:

Indeed it would be. Since you're a modder, do you know how hard would it be? (Not that I could do it myself TBH)

The big problem here will be coming up with the wide variety of missions that you would need. Other people have solved the problem of planets, and the contract itself is pretty easy, but you want a wide variety and that makes it bit more complicated I would suggest if you're interested to try by writing a contract for a couple of missions and see if you can get that working and then you can expand upon that

 

[Ultimate Steve]

RE: the "Quest Line."

The Easter Eggs were originally supposed to be part of a big storyline, as developed by one of the developers who no longer works at SQUAD. Unfortunately it never was fully implemented. I'm not going to say his name or the storyline, he has stated in the past that he wanted the story to die, but just so you know there was a plan...

There was a plan.

[MinimalMinmus]

4 minutes ago, Ultimate Steve said:

RE: the "Quest Line."

The Easter Eggs were originally supposed to be part of a big storyline, as developed by one of the developers who no longer works at SQUAD. Unfortunately it never was fully implemented. I'm not going to say his name or the storyline, he has stated in the past that he wanted the story to die, but just so you know there was a plan...

There was a plan.

Well, I wonder if it was possible to revive the plan. Consider my previous post a very rough draft of a fan-made story.

[Greenfire32]

It would be cool if easter eggs showed up as anomalies on the heatmap generated by the ISRU scan satellites.

[RatchetinSpace]

I like the easter eggs as they are. They're very quirky and interesting, and quite shocking when you stumble across them. I don't think there's anything wrong with them.

BTW, the Mohole is a bug, they just decided not to patch it and rebranded it as an easter egg (it might be unpatchable for all I know).

[Avery616]

On 11/1/2017 at 8:43 PM, Jas0n said:

Personally I would like there to be some kind of a narrative that ties the anomalies together. Maybe as a modded contract "quest line"? 

 

I think there were plans for that at one point....I think.

[MinimalMinmus]

6 minutes ago, Avery616 said:

I think there were plans for that at one point....I think.

Indeed, there was, at the end you would discover a planet of the Kerbals' precursors.

[Pthigrivi]

Have any modders managed to build active geysers or volcanoes? I guess I still wish we'd get some real geological surface features instead of more monoliths. The cartooniness is fun and fine but I'd love something that felt more like real space exploration.

Edited November 13, 2017 by Pthigrivi

[Spricigo]

9 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

I guess I still wish we'd get some real geological surface features instead of more monoliths. 

Well...the celestial bodies are covered in geological features: hills, plains, craters and even mountains.

No, there's nothing special about those. However volcanos/geysers wouldn't be any more special if added just for the sake of adding different geological features.

 

[Pthigrivi]

11 hours ago, Spricigo said:

Well...the celestial bodies are covered in geological features: hills, plains, craters and even mountains.

No, there's nothing special about those. However volcanos/geysers wouldn't be any more special if added just for the sake of adding different geological features.

 

Well they would if they had small biomes with high payouts around them that encouraged players to precision land and bring rovers. The anomalies would too, just hoping for something a little more 'sciency' feeling, something that makes the landscapes feel more alive. I would loose all but three of the monoliths and replace them with randomized crystal formations, ice deposits, maybe even fossil beds or bacteria. These would have to be small but visible from a short distance so you could spot them from a rover and know to go check it out for some bonus science/rep.

Edited November 14, 2017 by Pthigrivi

[Spricigo]

If .

So the point stand, surface features in itself (be it volcanos/geysers or monoliths/arcs/memorial ) will bring little* improvement to the game if any. And I don't see how one option or another will be more suited for the really interesting addition for the game, that is something engaging to do at the destination.

Lets take your idea of micro biomes with high payout. It can be done around rare surface geological features or around monoliths or without any landmark to signal it. The real improvement its the micro biome, not the mechanism to make it evident to the player.

 

*mind you,  that's just personal perspective. Other may give high value for this and that is as "correct" as my opinion or anyone's else.

 

 

 

[Pthigrivi]

1 hour ago, Spricigo said:

If .

So the point stand, surface features in itself (be it volcanos/geysers or monoliths/arcs/memorial ) will bring little* improvement to the game if any. And I don't see how one option or another will be more suited for the really interesting addition for the game, that is something engaging to do at the destination.

Lets take your idea of micro biomes with high payout. It can be done around rare surface geological features or around monoliths or without any landmark to signal it. The real improvement its the micro biome, not the mechanism to make it evident to the player.

 

*mind you,  that's just personal perspective. Other may give high value for this and that is as "correct" as my opinion or anyone's else.

Yeah I don't think we disagree that much. Right now the anomalies are so small and so sparse you you'd be lucky to find any without looking them up. Kerbnet helps because you can flag the little question marks and then go down to check them out later. The better you are at precise landings the less you need a rover, which is cool but doesn't yet reward players as an integrated part of the gameplay (--thats the separate issue micro biomes could fix). The visuals and the mechanics are linked, though, from the player experience. My feeling is the visual on-the-surface experience should be a part of it. Volcanoes and geysers--aside from being a bit more real--would necessarily be tall. If you landed anywhere remotely close you could see them on the horizon and would know to drive toward them. Other geological formations could be smaller but more common, and should also jump out to your eye as you scanned the landscape. Some of these could be scattered heavily in some biomes and not in others, ice crystals in the Mun's polar lowlands or fossils in Duna's canyons for instance. Some of these features could be fixed, others could be randomized for each save. Its that interactive, exploratory experience I think we should be after--mapping from orbit, scouting on the ground and discovering things in the moment that we didn't expect. Don't foist a particular storyline on players, give them a real landscape to explore and let them create their own story. 

I don't think this would be nuts to implement, either. You'd really just need few models and some visual effects that could be re-skinned from planet to planet. 

 

Edited November 14, 2017 by Pthigrivi