What stock features are not fully developed?

[Gapone]

9 minutes ago, GregroxMun said:

the only thing which could be better is Jool itself I guess

This. Jool needs a more realistic "surface" than a nothing. Maybe a bottomless ocean?

[Whirligig Girl]

44 minutes ago, Gapone said:

This. Jool needs a more realistic "surface" than a nothing. Maybe a bottomless ocean?

I like that idea I guess, but you'd have to be careful so that you aren't forced to spend hours drifting down to the altitude you get crushed at, since KSP won't let you save if you leave the flight while in motion in an atmosphere or ocean. And it can't be just a normal bottomless ocean. It has to be an atmosphere that gets thicker and thicker until it behaves like liquid hydrogen. By that point though, temperatures and pressures could not be withstood by any vessel, so getting there is pointless. There should just be cloud layers and thickening fog and darkness until the depths begin to glow red hot, and the ship starts to explode. But you also need to be able to abandon probes before that point if you don't feel like waiting the better part of an hour to fall to that depth.

[Aegolius13]

I would call the NERV "not fully developed" until we finally get stock LF-only tanks in rocket form factors (i.e., 2.5m and 3.75m), rather than having to cobble together airplane parts.

[KerbolExplorer]

1 hour ago, Aegolius13 said:

I would call the NERV "not fully developed" until we finally get stock LF-only tanks in rocket form factors (i.e., 2.5m and 3.75m), rather than having to cobble together airplane parts.

Can't you just drain the oxidiser from the tank?

[razark]

14 minutes ago, KerbolExplorer said:

Can't you just drain the oxidiser from the tank?

You can, but you can't fill the empty space with LF.

[Aegolius13]

18 minutes ago, KerbolExplorer said:

Can't you just drain the oxidiser from the tank?

 

4 minutes ago, razark said:

You can, but you can't fill the empty space with LF.

Meaning you end up with 2x the dry tankage weight (in addition to the extra volume).  Which is a fairly big hit to the delta-v gain you get by using nukes in the first place. 

[KerbolExplorer]

5 minutes ago, razark said:

You can, but you can't fill the empty space with LF.

Thats right.They should add a sistem similar to the one of real fuels

[linuxgurugamer]

On 2/25/2019 at 1:19 PM, razark said:

Must resist urge...

Don't say it.

It will not end well.

 

"Multiplayer!"

 

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Time to go hide now.

Doesn't apply.  That isn't a stock feature.  Period. Therefore, it can't be "not fully developed", it has "never BEEN developed", and most likely never will

[razark]

2 hours ago, linuxgurugamer said:

Doesn't apply.  That isn't a stock feature.  Period. Therefore, it can't be "not fully developed", it has "never BEEN developed", and most likely never will

It was announced as being planned as a feature, and 0% development (Although this is debatable.  Squad indicated in the past that back-end work had been done in preparation of a multi-player implementation, so 0% is not entirely true, but, for the sake of pedantic argument, we'll just go with it anyway.) is much less than 100% (or "fully") developed, therefore it is perfectly fine to say that it is not fully developed.  In fact, anything that is not 100% implemented is "not fully developed", so we could also say that anything that is not in the game is "not fully developed", such as boat parts, helicopters, cabbage farming, and word processing.

 

 

Or we could choose not to split hairs, take it as the (quite obvious) joke that it was, and move on with this thread and our lives in general peace and well-being.

[Duck McFuddle]

In my opinion, one thing that has bugged me from the beginning was Kerbal skills. They don't do much.

Also (of course) more stuff to do on planets.

[evandisoft]

Missions that say to get science readings should only be for biomes/orbits that have not had those specific experiments done in them yet. There is a wierd disconnect between those missions and where the science is actually remaining.

Also, for missions where companies ask you to build something for them (satellite/base/space station) it seems wierd that we own the thing after the mission is complete. This seems like an incomplete idea. One idea would be that they offer to pay for, for example, a base on Minmus, and in return charge you a monthly fee to use it.

There should also be some sort of intelligent time constraint, for example, a budget.

 

[Fraktal]

On 2/25/2019 at 8:28 AM, KSK said:

Kerbal skills.  Felt like a checkbox exercise so we can 'level up' our kerbals. Veers between almost pointless (pilots) and over-the-top effective (engineers). I forget what scientists brought to the table.

On 2/25/2019 at 8:27 PM, StrandedonEarth said:

This. So much this. I don’t want Kerbal level ups to be a passive “now you can do this”. I want to choose what The First Four can do next, thanks, even crosstraining them if I want (for an excessive amount of XP, of course). 

On 2/26/2019 at 3:06 AM, Jacke said:

Well, Pilots are bottled SAS.  Until probe cores get manageable.

Engineers are strong.  But need to go interplanetary and return to figure out how to fix a broken wheel, which is silly.

And Scientists are for resetting Goo and Materials experiments and crewing the near-infinite wells of science the Mobile Processing Labs can be.  And the MPL breaks any challenge in the career science system.  (Career is another area needing a lot of work.)

I've thought for a while that perhaps it should have been two classes, Pilot-Engineers and Engineer-Scientists.

On 2/26/2019 at 9:45 AM, Capt. Hunt said:

Honestly, I think what Kerbal levels needs is a cumulative XP system rather then an accomplishment system.  You should be able to level a Kerbal with repeated missions into LKO, rather then requiring greater and greater feats of astronautics.  Some of us aren't constantly doing missions all over the solar system.

If I may have a suggestion in this regard...

• To learn a skill (better SAS, better repair capabilities, better science gain, etc.), the Kerbal has to spend X time at the KSC, during which he/she can't go on missions.
• While skills still have an XP requirement, it's not an absolute yes/no condition like right now; instead, the Kerbal can learn that skill even if he/she doesn't have the indicated amount of XP, it will just significantly (from days to weeks to months, in extreme cases) increase training time proportionally to how much XP the Kerbal has to go to reach the threshold (meaning if a skill requires 10 XP and the Kerbal has 2, it will take him/her longer to learn it than a Kerbal with 6 XP).
• Conversely, having more XP than the requirement proportionally decreases training time and if the difference is big enough (Kerbal has double or more XP than the required), there's a chance upon next returning to Kerbin that the overleveled Kerbal instantly learns that skill without needing to take time off for training, due to their experience allowing them to figure it out on their own. The chance of this happening would be a difficulty option and can be set anywhere between 0% and 100%.
• Similarly, Kerbals may learn skills outside their field of expertise (like Scientists learning SAS), but this will be limited to lower-tier skills and/or have a 1.5+ multiplier to XP requirements (which also indirectly increases training time). Whether overleveled Kerbals can auto-learn skills outside their field of expertise would be a difficulty option.
• Additionally, skills that are not numeric multipliers (SAS levels, repair skills, etc.) can be learned out of order, if you consider the incomplete skillset and/or insufficient experience training time penalty worth it.
• Astronaut Complex modifiers:
  • Skills can be tied to Astronaut Complex level. By default this only affects training, not the "overleveled Kerbals randomly get the skill for free" thing; also affecting the latter is a difficulty option.
  • Upgrading the Astronaut Complex decreases all training time.
  • Kerbals who know a skill provide a small training time decrease to everyone else learning the same skill while the veteran in question is idling at the Astronaut Complex, giving a purpose to spreading the experience around rather than only flying with the First Four.
• Optionally, there could also be a way for Kerbals to learn skills while on a mission via telepresence instruction, giving them something useful to do during interplanetary voyages.

[KerbolExplorer]

37 minutes ago, Fraktal said:

(snip)

I like this,we need more reasons to hire more reasons to hire more kerbals.

 

[evandisoft]

43 minutes ago, Fraktal said:

• Optionally, there could also be a way for Kerbals to learn skills while on a mission via telepresence instruction, giving them something useful to do during interplanetary voyages.

I just check "Kerbals level up immediately". I don't really see the logic behind them behing incapable of improving unless they go back to kerbin.

EDIT: I think that in general the whole idea of Kerbin being special should be something that is done away with over the course of tech development ingame. Eventually technology will make Earth no longer effectively special. Even dead moons will be home to some people.

Edited February 28, 2019 by evandisoft

[evandisoft]

On 2/25/2019 at 12:11 PM, swjr-swis said:

• Tech tree - seriously, isn't is about time to sit down and take a good hard look at letting this make just a lil more logical sense?

It seems to me that basically there is little point in pursuing different research strategies.

If you go the airplane route you get practically no science from kerbin. The missions to fly to a spot on kerbin and observe or whatever take a long amount of time compared to the reward.

If you go for more advanced rocket parts instead of science you know you're just going to have to send a mission back to the moon or minmus to get that science later. It seems that opening a new science part almost always pays for itself. Sure, you have to upgrade rocket parts eventually, but after several play-throughs I realized I was doing the same thing every time.

I was hoping a lot of aspects of this game were temporary placeholders, like the initial tech-tree design, but it seems that was not the intent.

[KerikBalm]

On 2/24/2019 at 11:01 PM, klesh said:

Engine/Part Upgrades.  Added in 1.2, but nothing in the game has them.

Yes... needed, so that the early 1.25m engines aren't just irrelevant and pointless by the late game. Perhaps not every part should be upgradeable (end tier engines for example) ,but early tier engines should get upgrades (coming at the end tiers) so that they aren't completely outclassed by end tier engines

On 2/25/2019 at 8:28 AM, KSK said:

3.75m parts (or whatever diameter the Kerbodyne parts are). Did we ever get a full set of parts including capsule, lander cabins etc?

The Space Centre minigame. Tier 1 - great if you like challenges and/or Caveman style gameplay. Tier 2 - allowed part counts move from 'almost excessively challenging' to 'no challenge at all unless you like Whackjobian constructs', gameplay functionality (EVAs, maneuver nodes) are unlocked and your kerbals learn the mystical arts of the filing cabinet, thus allowing them to accept more than two contracts at a time. Tier 3 - otherwise known as the 'okay we're bored now' Tier, in which part count allowances go to (literal) infinity and we're forced to cough up a ridiculous amount of cash to unlock the last part of the tech tree.

Courage and Stupidity. Because meaningless numbers are fun. Unless you enjoy paying attention to the minutia of kerbal facial expressions during launch.

Kerbal skills.  Felt like a checkbox exercise so we can 'level up' our kerbals. Veers between almost pointless (pilots) and over-the-top effective (engineers). I forget what scientists brought to the table.

Meh, 3.75m parts are fine for me. They are launch vehicle parts. It makes sense that the largest parts are for the launch vehicle, and the smaller diameter parts are the more varied parts that are on the payload.... I could maybe go for a 3.75m docking port though.

To me Tier 2 did still pose some limitations, because I would get to using large SSTOs with part counts in the hundreds (and masses in the hundreds of tons)... particularly if playing with a rescale mode (I play at 3x rescale). Also the action grouping unlocks are very nice (this also applies to complex multi-use craft, not so needed for disposable craft where everything can be done via staging).

That said, I could see the need for an intermediate between tier 1 and tier 2. One could bring back the barn, and make that tier 1, then you could upgrade the barn to the current tier 1 buildings, with limits between current tier 1 and tier 2.

Courage and stupidity: I'm not sure I want them to do anything. It seems it would just introduce fustration that your kerbal was too stupid or cowardly to do what you want.

Kerbal skills... I wish it were a skill tree... and I agree that pilot skills beyond hold pro/retrograde are almost pointless... Scientists basically don't need skills at alll (they can rest everything at zero skill, compared to engineers that needs to level up to fix stuff). They process data faster in the MPL... which is.. OK, I guess. Its more relevant if life support were included. MPL processing can be used as a contract less source of funds to finance missions (science> funds strategy). So the rate at which they produce science may matter if you actually require upkeep for them (life support).

It would also be nice to have a decent pilot that can fix wheels, a scientist that can speed up ISRU processing ,etc.

 

On 2/25/2019 at 9:11 PM, swjr-swis said:

This is a trick question, yes? But I'll bite. Here's what I can think of (aside from things already mentioned above):

• Part pressure limits
• Part G-force limits
• Variant themes (the textures) - offers a lot of promise of quickly giving entire ships a specific look... but would need more consistency, and variants would need to be rolled out over many more parts
• Part variants (the models) - lot of promise here too, and it's slowly being fulfilled with the revamps, but still a lot of untapped potential
• Part variants (what they don't do but everyone hope they would) - fuel switching, the big absentee
• Most part cross-sections miss at least several types of parts (and somehow never the same) - it's like we got a few samples of each size, just to get a taste of what's available, and then we never got the rest of the sets
• Tech tree - seriously, isn't is about time to sit down and take a good hard look at letting this make just a lil more logical sense?
• Ore/Mining/Resource system - it's too slow for mid-trip refueling (unless we're all ok with wasting tens of years on 'refueling' to continue a trip), but there's no point to it for long-term stay either. It needs an overhaul or a purpose, probably both.
• Practically featureless celestial bodies - they need some more reason to (re)visit.
• The barn - Yes, I said it. Bring it back. Optional if need be, but make it happen. Facility progression really needs a step or two more to make sense.
• The mythical missing planets
• Easter egg storyline - really wish they'd write up some sort of 'ending' to this; almost anything would do at this point
• Signs of life at the KSC: we see the (optional) ground crew and vehicles when in the SPH and VAB... when do we get to see them while in the space center view or flight scene? It is still very weird to see all the activity from inside that goes completely dead when outside.
• Signs of life on Kerbin in general - all those kerbal recruits must come from somewhere, there's some dead archeological sites... it's really missing at least a couple of spread out population centers. And more landing/launch sites.

Can't parts be destroyed by too much pressure or G's? it requires extreme maneuvers, but I thought it was developed...

part variants/texture switching, this isn't fully developed, but they seem to be phasing it in, its new.

Ore mining is great, set up a fueling base on Mun or minmus, it can support biome hoppers at a destination, provide fuel for the return trip... and its not so slow with a leveled up engineer if you find a good spot and brought enough drills/power/radiators

What mythical missing planets? the idea of one departed developer? The system feels developed... although I wouldn't mind the addition of more outer planets and kuiper belt like objects.

Easter egg storyline: That's not a feature, and I don't want to see it developed... I'm happy just having little easter eggs like a apollo 11 monument, saucers reminiscent of the thing, vallhenge, a face on mars, obelisks from 2001, etc. Easter eggs don't need a narrative. The narrative proposed was a bit lame IMO (but I do like the SSTV signal)

As for signs of life: well its all over the place... just plant life. Animated animals seems like a bit much when it would only be used on Kerbin (though fish in the oceans of Laythe could be pretty cool).

I wouldn't mind if they added ground scatter that looked like buildings/villages/huts instead of trees/grass/rocks, so that kerbin looks like it actually hosts a civilization.

 

To add to the list: the admin strategies. The cost to change is too high, and they don't really allow you to pursue the game all that differently.

I think you should get 1 "free" to pick from the start, and you should be able to change without paying massive penalties - but maybe a time limit for the changes, so that you can't (or its at least limited) abuse it by changing strategies mid mission.... maybe strategies can't be changed/cancelled while you still have active contracts... or something like that

[KSK]

2 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Yes... needed, so that the early 1.25m engines aren't just irrelevant and pointless by the late game. Perhaps not every part should be upgradeable (end tier engines for example) ,but early tier engines should get upgrades (coming at the end tiers) so that they aren't completely outclassed by end tier engines

Meh, 3.75m parts are fine for me. They are launch vehicle parts. It makes sense that the largest parts are for the launch vehicle, and the smaller diameter parts are the more varied parts that are on the payload.... I could maybe go for a 3.75m docking port though.

*snip*

Courage and stupidity: I'm not sure I want them to do anything. It seems it would just introduce fustration that your kerbal was too stupid or cowardly to do what you want.

*snip*

It always used to bug me that the stock game had such a mismatch between spaceplane parts and everything else for getting more than three Kerbals at a time to orbit. 

On the one hand you’ve got three nicely matched sets of parts, each with differently sized passenger modules. On the other you’ve got some kind of lashed together contrivance of a three seater capsule, Hitchhiker modules and heat shields.

A 3.75m capsule with seats for say, seven Kerbals (akin to Crew Dragon or Starliner) would have redressed that balance quite a bit. 

Re courage and stupidity. If they’re not doing anything (apart from the cosmetic effect of changing Kerbal expressions) and there’s no gameplay mechanism for improving them, then just get rid of them. They’re a throwback to an era of KSP that ended when the Barn got junked and even then I thought ’stupidity’ was an obnoxious stat to measure your Kerbals by - and I say this as someone who liked the Barn and all  that it implied about Kerbal spaceflight.

[Barzon]

What is 'the barn'?

[Jacke]

2 hours ago, Barzon Kerman said:

What is 'the barn'?

The VAB of a proposed KSC Level 0.  Photos released in 2014 November as part of the run up to the release in the following December of KSP 0.90 and the career upgradeable facilities.  The Barn and other structures in those photos weren't included and we got the 3 levels that we still have today.

Some people loved the proposed Level 0.  Some people hated it.  Like the dev who designed the released KSC levels.  Many people are dissatisfied with the graphics and layout of the KSC Level 1 we got and the upgrade system.

KSC Level 1 still has some weird features about it.  The R&D Main Building--or rather what will become the R&D Main Building when R&D is upgraded to Level 2--isn't present at Level 1 as a micro-biome or as a structure that can be climbed, but still has a physics collider.  If you drive a rover onto its edges or steps, the rover is now situation flying low.  If you have a Kerbal jump onto it, the Kerbal now counts as flying low too.  And the EVA Kerbal can't move off of it either.

There's a lot of dissatisfaction with most features of KSP career in general, going back well before KSP 0.90.  Seeing the Barn and then having it not added was just another case of KSP career being substandard.

#BringBackTheBarn

I personally think the idea of more facility levels than the 3 we have is good.  The Barn as in the pictures was a work in progress and could have been improved.  I really think career needs a lot of love.  Right now KSP is still strongly sandbox.  And career lacks flexibility; at the start you should be able to build a simple uncrewed rocket, a simple rover, a simple aircraft, etc.

Some of the Barn's history has been mentioned in this thread.  Pop up the two pages (so far) and just search for "barn".

And more here, the second reply from @klesh to a recent thread about the Barn (my source for those two links above), and two videos from just after the release of KSP 0.90 below in the spoilers.

Lots of good back and forth in this topic that's still ongoing.

 

Spoiler

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

Edited March 17, 2019 by Jacke

[Tweeker]

There are quite a few areas where KSP is incomplete or lacking,

SRBs need rebalanced, and none of them gimbal, the last major update to the was .25.

LF engine are still badly balanced, and each new round of parts adds more Issues,  LF engines need to be baselined, and all  future releases need balanced to that base line,

Life support is still missing.

Science currently makes no sense,  returning 10 different kinds of moon rocks should not allow you to develop a new kind of engine or fuel tank. Returning science should be more of a mission goal to ensure continued funding or comply with a contract. Instead R&D should be based on something else,  for example maybe you earn more research points for each unit of fuel burned, seconds of engine burn time, minutes of manned flight, or returning a craft from a distant environment.

The UI  is still missing many gauges and readouts, for example there is no radio altimeter on the flight screen, It would be nice to be able to cycle thru 4 or 5 different readouts inplace of the altimeter at the top of the screen.

Many of the smaller parts are still missing for instance the Oscar-b is the only .625 fuel tank,  and there are no .625 radial decouplers

[RealKerbal3x]

9 hours ago, Tweeker said:

The UI  is still missing many gauges and readouts, for example there is no radio altimeter on the flight screen, It would be nice to be able to cycle thru 4 or 5 different readouts inplace of the altimeter at the top of the screen.

 

[KevinW42]

Speaking of altimeters, it bugs me that after all these years the IVA altimeter still uses the wrong hands for the 100, 1,000, and 10,000 meter indications.

[Daveroski]

They gave us all these worlds to go to but no means of deciding when to go.

One either has to go straight to Kerbol orbit and then plot a course from there or use external means or a mod to get a launch window.

Once other planets were included in the game transfer widow data should have been available.

We even have an info screen on the various planets. When I look at the info on a planet, I should be able to see the next transfer window.

 

D.

 

[klgraham1013]

6 hours ago, KevinW42 said:

Speaking of altimeters, it bugs me that after all these years the IVA altimeter still uses the wrong hands for the 100, 1,000, and 10,000 meter indications.

If people could stop pointing out the little things Squad messed up on that'd be great.  My face is getting sore with all this constant face palming. 

[Superfluous J]

59 minutes ago, Daveroski said:

One either has to go straight to Kerbol orbit and then plot a course from there or use external means or a mod to get a launch window.

There are ways in-game, but they're a bit wonky and kludgy. And too much to explain here.