VoidCosmos Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 (edited) Realism overhaul is nice but I wish it was stock and I want to find out how many would like it in Stock Edited December 31, 2018 by Nigel Cardozo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frozen_Heart Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 KSP walks the line between being realistic enough to educate people about spaceflight, while being easy and game like enough for anyone to just pick up and play in an instant. It's this that has made it so successful. Making it full realism would make the game too difficult and unenjoyable for the average person to play and would be bad for KSP overall. I'm happy with where the realism/game aspect sits currently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VoidCosmos Posted December 31, 2018 Author Share Posted December 31, 2018 (edited) 10 minutes ago, Frozen_Heart said: KSP walks the line between being realistic enough to educate people about spaceflight, while being easy and game like enough for anyone to just pick up and play in an instant. It's this that has made it so successful. Making it full realism would make the game too difficult and unenjoyable for the average person to play and would be bad for KSP overall. I'm happy with where the realism/game aspect sits currently. But I mean at the start of a new game ask the players if they want a full realism or stock KSP that would be the best and I do not mean that it is compulsory for fully realistic. The player has to decide it. Edited December 31, 2018 by Nigel Cardozo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hotel26 Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 12 minutes ago, Frozen_Heart said: I'm happy with where the realism/game aspect sits currently. Hear! Hear!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klgraham1013 Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 3 hours ago, Frozen_Heart said: KSP...educate people about spaceflight... I'd still argue that it doesn't so much teach about spaceflight, but encourage people to learn about spaceflight to be able to play the game. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocket In My Pocket Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 No offense, but no thanks. KSP is as popular as it is because it's cartoony and not overly realistic. Leave realism to the modders, or another game entirely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
razark Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 Full realism in KSP! Only 1/3 of the players get to land on the Mun, and only a handful of times. No crewed missions to other planets. Complete lack of funding for any projects. Any large projects should take years to build in the VAB, and the game should force you to make arbitrary changes during the process. You don't get to choose your projects, but have to do what the game tells you to do. Meanwhile, you get to watch video of someone launching a car. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klgraham1013 Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 1 hour ago, Rocket In My Pocket said: KSP is as popular as it is because it's cartoony and not overly realistic. Citation needed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Aziz Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 1 hour ago, klgraham1013 said: Citation needed. Well it seems to be much more popular than Orbiter, the barely known outside science geek community, quite realistic spaceflight simulator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klgraham1013 Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 22 minutes ago, The Aziz said: Well it seems to be much more popular than Orbiter, the barely known outside science geek community, quite realistic spaceflight simulator. Orbiter doesn't allow you to easily build things in a familiar Lego style. I'd argue KSP succeeds for three reasons. Kerbals are certainly one of them. The cute, cartoon characters definitely help ease the entry into the game. Second would be the building mechanic that inspires creativity. Realistic or wild creations alike. Third would be providing experiences not found in games. That of generally realistic space travel. As with many inventions, typically the one to do it first isn't the one to succeed. This is what Orbiter is to KSP. For many KSP is the first and only game to provide this type of experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rocket In My Pocket Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 (edited) 3 hours ago, klgraham1013 said: Citation needed. The proof of the pudding, as they say; is in the tasting. It IS cartoony and not overly realistic. It IS fairly popular. (Considering it's an educational game about orbital mechanics at heart.) These two things could be entirely unrelated, sure; but I find that pretty hard to believe. Especially when you consider that the game often garners interest from casual gamers who otherwise have zero interest in space or rockets. Edited December 31, 2018 by Rocket In My Pocket Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceCube2000 Posted December 31, 2018 Share Posted December 31, 2018 Life-support systems More realistic planetary terrain Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hotel26 Posted January 1, 2019 Share Posted January 1, 2019 (edited) It goes without saying that what follows is only my opinion. I have a very exacting 40-hour per week job. (On some days, it can feel pretty much soul-destroying.) To escape it, I return home and spend quite a bit more than 40 hours a week "playing" KSP and being creative and doing what I want within a simple and approachable framework of rules. So this issue is kind of a hot button. I really don't care much for the very detailed universe we live in and its many incomprehensible rules that might take a lifetime of study to properly understand. And I don't think role-playing being a "rocket scientist" is going to make me more attractive to women. (Remember the scene in Apollo 13 in which one of the astronauts explains to a young lady in a bar the docking procedure, illustrating it with a glass and a coke bottle? But he was a real astronaut!) I don't want to build things that simply mimic real life or else say "that would never fly in real life". The scope of the Kerbal universe is fun and manageable and relevant enough. If I can build something oddball in KSP that flies simply because it would fly for Kerbals, that's what I want to do. (Hey, is chess 'realistic'? Do 'knights' move on the board the same way they would at a joust??) KSP has a set of rules and the objective is to be creative within that rule set. Please, please do not make KSP as onerous as (my) real life. One more thing. It's OK to want an idea and even suggest it. But why not implement it as one's own mod or inspire someone else to implement it for those who actually are interested in it? That's a pretty libertarian way to do things. When one asks Squad to do it, there is a sense in which one may inadvertently impose one's idea on others who DON'T want it. It makes Squad (precious resource) pay the cost for that idea. It may clutter the stock game. And the cost may prevent better ideas, that appeal to more people, from being implemented. It's OK to ask, I suppose, but when one reaches that point at which one says, "it's better in stock, even on a switch" [still clutter in the interface and/or code], please be ready to justify WHY it has to be in stock and please listen hard to the level of opposition. Any change to stock breaks my world and my investment. If you want something in KSP, it's probably already there as a mod: exercise choice and download it and enjoy. P.S. I know this idea is a bit upsetting, but in my opinion, KSP is now a mature product and doesn't need a lot of additional development. Bug fixing and consolidation would be just grand, (including possibly getting it off of Unity). Edited January 1, 2019 by Hotel26 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pandaman Posted January 1, 2019 Share Posted January 1, 2019 As a DLC option yes, I would very much like to see our actual solar system, ideally with options for full and reduced scales. But not instead of 'stock'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VoidCosmos Posted January 1, 2019 Author Share Posted January 1, 2019 7 hours ago, pandaman said: As a DLC option yes, I would very much like to see our actual solar system, ideally with options for full and reduced scales. But not instead of 'stock'. A DLC would be great but it would take a lot of ram Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Aziz Posted January 1, 2019 Share Posted January 1, 2019 And so would implementation to stock. Everything that is in \GameData\ directory gets loaded into the RAM, and believe me, realistic, switchable, optional addition to game, would be there. Where else would you put a new ton of parts to use with it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klgraham1013 Posted January 1, 2019 Share Posted January 1, 2019 There are really only two realism pieces I would add. First would be two additional solar systems (ONLY loaded into ram when a save game is loaded) that would have a fictional 5x system and a fictional real scale system. Second would be life support. How one of the most visible and challenging parts of space travel is not in the game really boggles the mind. There are a few other things like clouds (I mean, come on, it's 2019), but those two would add tons of gameplay. Little tweaks here and there would be to how electricity and fuel are measured and used. 13 hours ago, Hotel26 said: KSP is now a mature product and doesn't need a lot of additional development. Bug fixing and consolidation would be just grand This we can agree on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EchoLima Posted January 1, 2019 Share Posted January 1, 2019 Some realism tweaks could be nice. For instance, RTGs should gradually decay, so that they're balanced against other energy sources. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laie Posted January 1, 2019 Share Posted January 1, 2019 On 12/31/2018 at 10:54 AM, Frozen_Heart said: KSP walks the line between being realistic enough to educate people about spaceflight, while being easy and game like enough for anyone to just pick up and play in an instant. It's this that has made it so successful. From what I gather, most people don't even seriously try to make orbit, and of those that do, most drop the game after making orbit a few times. Anecdata gathered from acquaintances IRL suggests that this isn't due to gameplay difficulties, but because there was no serious interest in the first place. Pick up the game at a steam sale, play casually for a while, move on. I don't think player retention would be any worse if we had a real-scale solar system. Not necessarily RSS, it could still be Kerbin and Duna for all I care; but the bodies should be as large as they are heavy. I do think that small Kerbin is to blame for most everything that's wrong or broken in KSP, from armor-plated tanks to the wholly made-up reentry heat. Most of the wrongness is subtle, you can easily fail to notice, yet at he same time it's horribly, utterly wrong. Once you're aware, you cannot unsee -- which is probably still better than believing in a game that appears to be so realistic. On the other had, I believe that the rocketry shortcuts like deep throttling and infinite restarts and magic torque are good to have in a game. Making these work realistically would actually deter people. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klgraham1013 Posted January 1, 2019 Share Posted January 1, 2019 28 minutes ago, Laie said: I do think that small Kerbin is to blame for most everything that's wrong or broken in KSP, from armor-plated tanks to the wholly made-up reentry heat. Most of the wrongness is subtle, you can easily fail to notice, yet at he same time it's horribly, utterly wrong. Once you're aware, you cannot unsee This is so very true. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OHara Posted January 1, 2019 Share Posted January 1, 2019 (edited) Remember that having Kerbin one-tenth the radius of Earth, with the same surface gravity, cuts the time to orbit by 1/3, for a given G-force on the astronauts. That makes the player's early try-fail-retry experiences much more enjoyable. It also forces other unrealistic factors, like the weak engines, to make rockets look somewhat like Earth rockets. You can see a consistency, though, as if they are all some type of hypergolic-fuel engine that restarts and throttles, in exchange for low efficiency. But, the numbers in re-entry heat are not so consistent: one-tenth the orbital energy does not require a system with 3000K heat-tolerance. I can see the wisdom in making a game with immortal Kerbals that do not eat, so that players can concentrate on the more fun aspects of getting them to Jool. The strong reaction-wheels rather confuse me, though. I find it more fun to fly with engine-gimbal and aero-surfaces, turn in space with RCS, and use only weak reaction-wheels for fine-tuning orientation. But I can simply build that way, so I do. Where the deviations from reality are simple, make the game more fun for beginners, and leave a self-consistent set of rules, I like them, especially when KSP lets mods easily change the rules when you get bored with them. More new players to support KSP and eventually recruit into RSS. Edited January 1, 2019 by OHara Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klgraham1013 Posted January 1, 2019 Share Posted January 1, 2019 53 minutes ago, OHara said: That makes the player's early try-fail-retry experiences much more enjoyable. That's the mistake of the trial and error design philosophy of KSP. Just teach the player and those early frustrations go away. It's nothing to do with the size of the system. Yes, getting to orbit may take a little longer, but I think any early frustrations are alleviated with good, built-into-career, early game tutorials. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VoidCosmos Posted January 2, 2019 Author Share Posted January 2, 2019 (edited) 8 hours ago, OHara said: More new players to support KSP and eventually recruit into RSS. You are right many players such as Marcus House, Raiz Space just jump to RSS/RO. But I still like their simulations. And how do I get good fps Edited January 2, 2019 by Nigel Cardozo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laie Posted January 2, 2019 Share Posted January 2, 2019 10 hours ago, OHara said: time to orbit [...] much more enjoyable. I don't think time to orbit is such a showstopper. Or rather, while I believe that time-to-orbit matters, I don't think the difference between current KSP and smurff-RSS would be sufficient. Not that I have any experience with smurff, but I know that riding one of the ICBMs to orbit in RO (y'know, Atlas, Titan, R-7) takes on the order of 7 minutes, which is well in the ballpark of Kerbin launches (certainly if you count the coast at 4x warp, which IMO is the most boring bit). You can *chose* to take longer, but (just look around on these forums) many people do so on Kerbin as well. 9 hours ago, klgraham1013 said: That's the mistake of the trial and error design philosophy of KSP. Just teach the player[...] No. Just no. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klgraham1013 Posted January 2, 2019 Share Posted January 2, 2019 5 hours ago, Laie said: No. Just no. Don't teach the player? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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