Making late game science useful

[Cheif Operations Director]

It would be nice if use getting science (after we unlock the tech tree completely) was useful for something. The idea of taking science and then letting it sit their is annoying perhaps an editor that would allow you to create a new part completely from scratch and then it would take based on its characteristics X science points per Y days to add into your parts list. Another options adding a colony for Z points on a colony and it taking A days to show up their. These colonies could be prefabricated with some user intervention. (Similar to the KSC)

[RealKerbal3x]

There is the administration building, where you can use a strategy to convert all of your science into funds. But who really uses the administration building?

[KerbolExplorer]

5 hours ago, RealKerbal3x said:

There is the administration building, where you can use a strategy to convert all of your science into funds. But who really uses the administration building?

Yeah......Convert science to funds............Who had funs peoblems in KSP if you can just accept all of the contracts at mission control and BAM you have a lot of money

The only thing i see science doing after compliting the tech tree is too use it to upgrade parts.

[Cheif Operations Director]

14 minutes ago, KerbolExplorer said:

Yeah......Convert science to funds............Who had funs peoblems in KSP if you can just accept all of the contracts at mission control and BAM you have a lot of money

The only thing i see science doing after compliting the tech tree is too use it to upgrade parts.

That make sense, I still like the colony idea or the parts creator but the last one would be difficult

[KerbolExplorer]

2 minutes ago, Cheif Operations Director said:

That make sense, I still like the colony idea or the parts creator but the last one would be difficult

I like aswell the colony idea but it needs a reason to build a colony on other planets.But if Squad can make that happen the game could have a good potentitial for a story mode

[JadeOfMaar]

5 hours ago, KerbolExplorer said:

Yeah......Convert science to funds............Who had funs peoblems in KSP if you can just accept all of the contracts at mission control and BAM you have a lot of money

The only thing i see science doing after compliting the tech tree is too use it to upgrade parts.

On the other hand, science shouldn't be so plentiful to begin with. The KSC biomes should not exist, the outer stock planets have too high science multipliers, Minmus alone is a giant heap of science, and the science lab is more OP than any mod.

4 hours ago, Cheif Operations Director said:

That make sense, I still like the colony idea or the parts creator but the last one would be difficult

Using science like money to open a facility is actually a decent idea.

What if I told you there was a mod for spending science to upgrade parts? (I know y'all probably don't want to be pointed to mods. This should still work. Many mods made for 1.4 work fine in 1.6.)

 

[Cheif Operations Director]

1 hour ago, JadeOfMaar said:

On the other hand, science shouldn't be so plentiful to begin with. The KSC biomes should not exist, the outer stock planets have too high science multipliers, Minmus alone is a giant heap of science, and the science lab is more OP than any mod.



Using science like money to open a facility is actually a decent idea.



What if I told you there was a mod for spending science to upgrade parts? (I know y'all probably don't want to be pointed to mods. This should still work. Many mods made for 1.4 work fine in 1.6.)



 

The reason I say an expandable colony is because it takes research or "science" to make colonies in the first place.  

I've been trying to convince people that we should have a parts editor so we can make parts and not rely on modders and squad. This will loosen SQUADS workload and allow us to have immense control over our game. Further more we can reduce part count and then makes the game run smoother. Perhaps a STEAM upload so we can share parts as well.

[HvP]

We need a way to combine science gathering off world with the need for gameplay options once you reach other planets to add usefulness to EVA.

The developers have signaled opportunities for offworld launch-sites with the introduction of a Mun base site in the new console upgrade. In the stock game we have orbital and surface survey equipment, surface sampling and seismic testing equipment. I vote we should have the option to use this equipment to build an additional planetary overlay that displays suitable sites for planetary base construction. Ideally, such an overlay would not just list ore concentration, but also pitch of the terrain, length of daylight exposure, distance from nearby biomes and anomalies, elevation, latitude and other data that would contribute to a successful surface base.

Perhaps a heatmap of EVA activity on the surface could record how much of the area has been explored by your Kerbals. Areas that have been visited frequently and the number and value of science experiments performed could increase the value of the site and raise the percentage of a "construct surface launch site" option becoming available. Whether there is a sufficient concentration of ore in the area, the frequency of quakes in the area as revealed by seismic scans, soil conditions revealed by the surface samples, how level the ground is, etc... could all actually contribute to opening up the option of starting the construction of a surface base.

Edited February 23, 2019 by HvP

[JadeOfMaar]

19 minutes ago, Cheif Operations Director said:

The reason I say an expandable colony is because it takes research or "science" to make colonies in the first place.  

I've been trying to convince people that we should have a parts editor so we can make parts and not rely on modders and squad. This will loosen SQUADS workload and allow us to have immense control over our game. Further more we can reduce part count and then makes the game run smoother. Perhaps a STEAM upload so we can share parts as well.

So investing science like a resource into a converter? That would be just as neat. 

Unfortunately, your idea for what compares to Space Engineers or possibly Simple Rockets is the core of a game all its own, and won't happen except that KSP be rewritten to revolve around the intricacies of building an individual part from sub-parts. Such parts would likely be procedural in nature, and there's no escaping the need for modders to be present, if only to provide better-looking sub parts and more families of sub-parts, and more things like materials and propellants to contribute to the industrial phases of gameplay. A game is great and has long life if it is moddable, and modders make the game much better by not having the corporate burdens and restrictions that the game dev has as a company, by having the ideas, capacity and freedom to make something personal to themselves a reality in the game.

Hoping for modders to cease is hoping for KSP to die. The limited package (parts and features) that the game dev supplies you will only remain fresh for so long if the game doesn't allow you to expand upon it. Some people can play the same game in the same state for 5...10... years, but a lot of people also rather parts, environments and timeframes that can be related to but aren't locked to what the game dev will put out, that they exist and can be picked out from somewhere and installed when ready, and not be forced to improvise with stock parts and fill in the rest with just imagination.

The idea of hoping to lessen Squad's workload is an illusion, sadly, and should be cast away. Instead, hope for Squad to have the privilege to do their job better and to deliver the things that matter to the customer.

[Cheif Operations Director]

2 minutes ago, JadeOfMaar said:

So investing science like a resource into a converter? That would be just as neat. 

Unfortunately, your idea for what compares to Space Engineers or possibly Simple Rockets is the core of a game all its own, and won't happen except that KSP be rewritten to revolve around the intricacies of building an individual part from sub-parts. Such parts would likely be procedural in nature, and there's no escaping the need for modders to be present, if only to provide better-looking sub parts and more families of sub-parts, and more things like materials and propellants to contribute to the industrial phases of gameplay. A game is great and has long life if it is moddable, and modders make the game much better by not having the corporate burdens and restrictions that the game dev has as a company, by having the ideas, capacity and freedom to make something personal to themselves a reality in the game.



Hoping for modders to cease is hoping for KSP to die. The limited package (parts and features) that the game dev supplies you will only remain fresh for so long if the game doesn't allow you to expand upon it. Some people can play the same game in the same state for 5...10... years, but a lot of people also rather parts, environments and timeframes that can be related to but aren't locked to what the game dev will put out, that they exist and can be picked out from somewhere and installed when ready, and not be forced to improvise with stock parts and fill in the rest with just imagination.

The idea of hoping to lessen Squad's workload is an illusion, sadly, and should be cast away. Instead, hope for Squad to have the privilege to do their job better and to deliver the things that matter to the customer.

I do not disagree Modder's are integral to ksp. I said loosen their work load not lessen. But that I mean SQUAD can focus on making the game better and adding more things like planets and making the surfaces more interesting instead of always having to add MOAR parts. The part editor would have procedural parts but also allow for further customization using tools to create your own part completely from scratch.

[Tonka Crash]

I've been using this mod to level up my Kerbalnaut corps. Trading science for experience.

 

[James M]

I have an idea. 

Step one: Land on Desired Planet or Moon

Step Two: Grow or Colonize or Whatever Kerbals do to "multiply"... But make it not instantaneous

Step Three: Add Launch Site on new Colony Planet

Step Four: Unlock Brand New/Fresh tech tree (Basically start over from a new planet. However if you go back to kerbin, or another body, you can use the tech tree linked to that celestial body)

Was that a bad idea? Idk I'm going to bed now lol

[zer0Kerbal]

Two mods - one or both allow you spend SP (+time+EC) to level up your Kerbanuts.

Training Laboratory : Paying science point, Gets Kerbal experience

Field Training Facility : You can train your kerbalnaut with space stations and planetary bases

[JadeOfMaar]

On 5/4/2019 at 6:49 AM, James M said:

I have an idea. 

Step one: Land on Desired Planet or Moon

Step Two: Grow or Colonize or Whatever Kerbals do to "multiply"... But make it not instantaneous

Step Three: Add Launch Site on new Colony Planet

Step Four: Unlock Brand New/Fresh tech tree (Basically start over from a new planet. However if you go back to kerbin, or another body, you can use the tech tree linked to that celestial body)

Was that a bad idea? Idk I'm going to bed now lol

At its core, this is a bad idea (rather, step four is not the way things would go). Resetting the tech tree everywhere you land just adds several redundant heaps of grind. What actually happens is that you land with a bootstrap package (all the tools you need and just enough of every urgently needed resource) to get a small colony growing. Then you use the bootstrap to expand to a sufficient point near to "self-sustaining" (if you're lucky) before anything runs out and you fail (and have to wait for a critical shipment to leave Kerbin and arrive offworld-- or fail and die if any life support mods are present).

The issue of changing the tech tree is another topic and another thread.

The rest of your idea is good and contains things that should be more easily adopted (but this too is another topic):

• Life cycles and generations should be a thing (...not just death) with life support mods. USI MKS and Civilian Population are the only mods that provide this, but nobody has made an attempt to expand on these and make their own modlet focused more on generations and less on the other things about those mods that you would not want at this point.
• A mod for easily designing and deploying large and modular space centers does not exist (you have to kit-bash Extraplanetary Launchpads/Global Construction; Kerbal Konstructs maybe; X+Y+Z base parts mods; and deal with part count and FPS loss).