We need a career mode overhaul

[kirmie44]

Intro:

     So hear me out. The best way to get people back in the game is to make something new. Although I'm loving that they are making mods like infernal robotics a supported function of the game, it doesn't change the fact that a lot of us have been using those features for years. Same with the deployable experiments. everything added since the late stages of early access have been mods with the exception of their first dlc (which felt more like a groundwork than an actual feature in my book). With that said, there is one area of the content market that hasn't been touched, career mode and science mode. Besides for the rearrangement of the tec tree and the addition of a few new missions here and there, not much has changed. I've also thought the way these features have been implemented seemed a little shallow. What I want to suggest is a new overhaul for these two modes.

The first part of this is looking at how it works in the real world.

Science:

(Continuing the comment the next day. Thought I would post it up here to avoid confusion)

Problems with science:

     In real life, there isn't the direct correlation seen in ksp between science as we see it in the game and the advancements made in technology. The relationship in real life is 90% of the time closer to finding new problems we have to solve. This is never a problem in ksp because we are given all the information about all the star, all the planets and everything in between. what is the point of bringing a barometer to a planet where you already know everything about its atmosphere? In the real world, we had tests to see if space was a vacuum, we had to run many tests to see if we could pressurize a capsule, and we had little idea about any of the stuff we know until we sent something there to test it (Think about our recent visit of Pluto).

Problems with technological advancements:

    The other problem with how career mode/science mode was made was almost systemic. I feel like what was implemented wasn't there original gameplan. I've come to this conclusion because of how little their parts actually fit into the tec tree idea they have implemented. The tec in the game was not designed to go into a tec tree. For the most part, the "tec level" is based on the size of a part and not actually how much knowledge was needed to build it. What I want to see is the implementation of iterative designs.

My solution:

    Basically, you start out with a lot of junk parts. These parts look bad, don't work well, probably fail in environments outside of Kerbin sea level, and for good measure, have a base fail chance. Along with taking missions to study your solar system (of which you know nothing about), you would also take missions from your science team to help them improve your parts. unlike the test missions given off now. These missions would give you credits towards upgrading our parts. Along with these missions to give you credits. there would be general things like allowing engines to work in a vacuum, water, restart, throttle, etc. (All things we had to learn, and are still learning, in the field). This science would be collected by doing things like the barometric test and temperature tests we see in KSP today.

A good way to think of this is the first capsule ou send to space should always be empty. It needs to be tested first. Without things like this, this game is missing out on some of the best parts of our job in exploring the world and beyond!

 

Career:

Problems with Career & the suggested improvements:

    The main problem with the career is how lightweight it really is. There is very little to it, and it's hard to actually mess up. This is fine for some, but I think a lot of us were originally hoping for a bit more. A lot of what makes career modes great is the management. You need to be able to see your expenses and take risks. Squad tried to implement this before launch with that one building no one ever clicks on but it really doesn't work that well. a career mode should revolve around time and funds managment. You should see how much it costs to maintain a team of engineers as well as how long it takes to build a rocket. An alarm clock and construction time should be implemented. You should be able to speed up the construction of a craft with part failure chance going up. you should be able to fire staff to lower your costs and hire them as needed. There should be a monthly/yearly expense report. These features would go a long way to making career mode a better mode. A few more ideas would be including things like kerbal konstructs, allowing you to spend money to build more launch pads as well as just more infrastructure.  I don't like that particular mod too much because of how messy it looks but a lighter version of it could go a long way. The main point I would say is to look at a game like X-COM. It has a solid management system that would work beautifully in a game like KSP. even the kerbal upgrade sstem could be improved along the same lines.

Edited May 20, 2019 by kirmie44
Continuation of previous thought that was originally cut off when i got logged out

[kirmie44]

This deleted my next comment so if people are interested, please post your ideas!!!

[EasyAce]

Not sure if your post has been finished? It seems you are about to write something about science and the two modes.

Anyhow, I agree.

 

I use Construction time and research bodies to increase the gameplay of my career. I think there is a lot they can do with the career mode, but unsure what can be done to actualy get this game hyped again. I think they might look at starting all over, with KSP2 and focus on:

• implementing a solar system that is a little different each time you start a new career - for an example.
• Mulitiplayer like in space engineers
• perspective change.
  • First person where your view is restricted to interior, or the KSC probe control room.
    or
  • only third person GOD mode where the kerbals are selfgoverned/moving about, and you may point and click to order them do stuff. It would lifen it all up if your Mün base was populated with 10 kerbals that actualy walked around doing jobs to keep the base running. Fixing random failures, growing food, exploring the soroundings...

[Rocket In My Pocket]

I'm certainly in the minority around here, but I love career mode just as it is.

Sure, it could use some minor improvements and such, but there isn't anything inherently wrong with it.

KSP is a sandbox game at heart, and personally I tend to bounce off sandbox games a lot as I like some direction, (at least at first.) Career is like a long, glorified tutorial, that slowly increases the size of your "sandbox" until the whole game is open to you, and money, science, and all that are no longer a concern; and suddenly you realize you're playing a full fledged sandbox without every actively deciding to. (Which is why I think, a lot of veteran players around here don't like it, they've outgrown it essentially. Me, I've always been a habitual re-starter so I have no problems playing it again and again after new updates.) I often see players asking what to do after the tech tree is done for example, claiming Career needs more to do after that, but I disagree, the game is just beginning for real once you unlock the whole tech tree. You're ready to drop the training wheels and ride your bike to the stars.

Edited May 18, 2019 by Rocket In My Pocket

[Superfluous J]

I've waxed poetical about career over the years and don't really want to rehash my ideas (mostly because I don't have a simple link and don't want to type a lot) but I essentially agree with @Rocket In My Pocket that career is at its core fine, but has issues with the details. There is far too much science available in the world, and far too many other ways to get it. The core science mechanic needs to be hands-off and 100% in almost all cases so there is no benefit in returning with the exact same craft to the exact same spot. The difficulty level should not dictate how much money you get or need to spend, but how difficult building and flying rockets is.

And once I transfer crew between two vessels around Kerbin, I shouldn't be required to do it around another world before I can be offered a new Explore contract.

[kirmie44]

Problems with science:

In real life, there isn't the direct correlation seen in ksp between science as we see it in the game and the advancements made in technology. The relationship in real life is 90% of the time closer to finding new problems we have to solve. This is never a problem in ksp because we are given all the information about all the star, all the planets and everything in between. what is the point of bringing a barometer to a planet where you already know everything about its atmosphere? In the real world, we had tests to see if space was a vacuum, we had to run many tests to see if we could pressurize a capsule, and we had little idea about any of the stuff we know until we sent something there to test it (Think about our recent visit of Pluto).

Problems with technological advancements:

     The other problem with how career mode/science mode was made was almost systemic. I feel like what was implemented wasn't there original gameplan. I've come to this conclusion because of how little their parts actually fit into the tec tree idea they have implemented. The tec in the game was not designed to go into a tec tree. For the most part, the "tec level" is based on the size of a part and not actually how much knowledge was needed to build it. What I want to see is the implementation of iterative designs.

My solution:

  Basically, you start out with a lot of junk parts. These parts look bad, don't work well, probably fail in environments outside of Kerbin sea level, and for good measure, have a base fail chance. Along with taking missions to study your solar system (of which you know nothing about), you would also take missions from your science team to help them improve your parts. unlike the test missions given off now. These missions would give you credits towards upgrading our parts. Along with these missions to give you credits. there would be general things like allowing engines to work in a vacuum, water, restart, throttle, etc. (All things we had to learn, and are still learning, in the field). This science would be collected by doing things like the barometric test and temperature tests we see in KSP today. 

A good way to think of this is the first capsule ou send to space should always be empty. It needs to be tested first. Without things like this, this game is missing out on some of the best parts of our job in exploring the world and beyond!

[kirmie44]

13 hours ago, EasyAce said:

Not sure if your post has been finished? It seems you are about to write something about science and the two modes.

Anyhow, I agree.

 

I use Construction time and research bodies to increase the gameplay of my career. I think there is a lot they can do with the career mode, but unsure what can be done to actualy get this game hyped again. I think they might look at starting all over, with KSP2 and focus on:

• implementing a solar system that is a little different each time you start a new career - for an example.
• Mulitiplayer like in space engineers
• perspective change.
  • First person where your view is restricted to interior, or the KSC probe control room.
    or
  • only third person GOD mode where the kerbals are selfgoverned/moving about, and you may point and click to order them do stuff. It would lifen it all up if your Mün base was populated with 10 kerbals that actualy walked around doing jobs to keep the base running. Fixing random failures, growing food, exploring the soroundings...

These are my two favorite mods. What I'm thinking about revolves around these mods plus a science overhaul (aka complete change to how parts are unlocked)

[kirmie44]

8 hours ago, Rocket In My Pocket said:

I'm certainly in the minority around here, but I love career mode just as it is.

Sure, it could use some minor improvements and such, but there isn't anything inherently wrong with it.

KSP is a sandbox game at heart, and personally I tend to bounce off sandbox games a lot as I like some direction, (at least at first.) Career is like a long, glorified tutorial, that slowly increases the size of your "sandbox" until the whole game is open to you, and money, science, and all that are no longer a concern; and suddenly you realize you're playing a full fledged sandbox without every actively deciding to. (Which is why I think, a lot of veteran players around here don't like it, they've outgrown it essentially. Me, I've always been a habitual re-starter so I have no problems playing it again and again after new updates.) I often see players asking what to do after the tech tree is done for example, claiming Career needs more to do after that, but I disagree, the game is just beginning for real once you unlock the whole tech tree. You're ready to drop the training wheels and ride your bike to the stars.

3

I do agree with your assessment, but I fall into the category of people who played it when there was no science and the buildings looked like they were from a 60s future. when the game gave us the science mode, I was so excited. The problem for me is that was the last day I had access to some of the parts at the top of the tec tree. I haven't used the nuclear engines since. If a career mode is an option, I feel like sandbox mode is cheating and never clicked it again. It's just my thinking, I don't feel right playing sandbox anymore because of it. The problem isn't that I can't get the science either (I've literally studied this since 2016), I just usually quit before I get to any high enough tech advancement. I don't like the grinding idea the science mode puts into place. A lot of the effort is disconnected from the actual work, especially knowing all the fun that goes into actually building a rocket.

[kirmie44]

13 hours ago, EasyAce said:

Not sure if your post has been finished? It seems you are about to write something about science and the two modes.

Anyhow, I agree.

 

I use Construction time and research bodies to increase the gameplay of my career. I think there is a lot they can do with the career mode, but unsure what can be done to actualy get this game hyped again. I think they might look at starting all over, with KSP2 and focus on:

• implementing a solar system that is a little different each time you start a new career - for an example.
• Mulitiplayer like in space engineers
• perspective change.
  • First person where your view is restricted to interior, or the KSC probe control room.
    or
  • only third person GOD mode where the kerbals are selfgoverned/moving about, and you may point and click to order them do stuff. It would lifen it all up if your Mün base was populated with 10 kerbals that actualy walked around doing jobs to keep the base running. Fixing random failures, growing food, exploring the soroundings...

I LOVE all your suggestions!! The only problem is that I don't think everyone would. They are a bit hardcore so if PD decided to add such a difficulty, I hope this is what the go for!

[Pthigrivi]

I'm also in the RIMP camp. I almost always play career and it's a lot of fun, but for sure it could use a push. Squad's also done some great work in the last year and my list is a lot shorter than it used to be. There are a few science improvements I'd love to see (agreed with 5thHorseman on automating or at least consolidating much of the clicking and making most if not all results 100% on recovery) but I'll postpone comment on the rest until we see what Breaking Ground has in store. 
 

1) I love that we've gotten deltaV readouts, burn time and flight info improvements in vanilla. They were long awaited and much appreciated. The few bits I'd still love to see are a stock alarm clock and stock transfer window aid. I personally like porkchops, but some kind of orrery could work too maybe if it was clever? 

2) The building upgrades are a little clunky still. There are a number smaller tweaks I could see but the main offender is the VAB/SPH part count restriction. It just feels arbitrary and contrived. As many have suggested it would be much better to put size constraints on the VAB and weight constraints on the launchpad and leave it at that. Those size/weight numbers could also be tighter, especially in hard mode. Another thing that would help would be a series of strategies available in the Admin building that would let players directly control the types of generated contracts that come up. So for instance you could set your level of commitment to tourism contracts or satellite or base building contracts and that's what would most often pop up for you in Mission control. 

3) The main thing though would be to do some serious work on the Story-line contracts. Right now the limitations on these contracts are so flaky almost all players break them and the progression ends without them even realizing it. There needs to be a simple, persistent progression of main-line missions that lends itself to open-ended exploration. We could probably also benefit from little bit of restructuring of the UI in Mission control. Mainly I'd like to see contracts broken into tabs by planet with the Milestone contracts always listed up top. As you leave Kerbin and explore the Mun + Minmus more tabs would open up so players could essentially go anywhere they want, get the Milestone reward, and tack on other side-quest contracts like resource extraction or conducting science in a specific place if they wished. So it might look like this:

Kerbin:
- Launch our first vessel! >
          - Altitude records
          - Speed records
          - Distance records
          - Escape the Atmosphere! >
                    - Orbit Kerbin! > [Unlock Mun and Minmus tabs]
                              - Rendezvous two vessels >
                                        - Dock two vessels

Mun:
- Flyby the Mun
- Orbit the Mun
- Land on the Mun
- Plant Flag on the Mun
- Return from the Mun > [Unlock other planet tabs w/ return Minmus complete]

Minmus:
- Flyby Minmus
- Orbit Minmus
- Land on Minmus
- Plant Flag on Minmus
- Return from Minmus > [Unlock other planet tabs w/ return Mun complete]

(All other planets)
- Flyby X
- Orbit X
- Land on X
- Plant Flag on X
- Return from X

So once a player had landed on and returned from both Muns they could accept contracts and receive advances to go anywhere in the Kerbol system in whatever order they wished, the only limitation being maxing out the number of accepted contracts.

4) The other thing that could be added to these contracts in order to set the stage for other time-based mechanics like long-term experiments, construction and research time would be offering bonus rewards for completing these contracts before a given date. So if you landed on and returned from Duna by X date you'd receive the normal Milestone reward, plus a bonus 30-50% for getting there quickly. This would also help in making a more compelling, less grindy Hard Mode, because you could reduce overall rewards for completing missions and also move up the bonus dates so players would have to beat the clock if they wanted to succeed. 

tldr,
- Add alarm clock and transfer window aid
- Remove part count restriction in the VAB/SPH
- Add strategies that effect offered contract types
- Add permanent storyline/progression contracts by planet in tabs
- Add time-based bonuses for completing those contracts quickly
 

Edited May 20, 2019 by Pthigrivi

[Kerbart]

Career, in my mind, was very much added in the beginning to provide some structure to new players, for whom everything but the kitchen sink would be too overwhelming to get started with the game.

Hence the illogical organization of the tech tree. It’s partially there to guide you into “build better, not fatter” and to provide goals (orbit, moons, docking, surface landings, the planets) to help you on the way.

We have missions now, and they could provide a superior job for that. Similarly, career mode is way too grindy now.

The tech tree should be revised with a lot of small stuff (ladders, wheels), early available. More tech and funding should then be offered through “programs,” (colonize the moon) which offer some technology up front and more as progress is being made.

[kirmie44]

9 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

tldr,

- Add alarm clock and transfer window aid
- Remove part count restriction in the VAB/SPH
- Add strategies that effect offered contract types
- Add permanent storyline/progression contracts by planet in tabs
- Add time-based bonuses for completing those contracts quickly
 

2

I like where your going, we need a bit more structure and the ability to tell people where we are going as a Space Program. I think you are going a bit to small. These are minor tweeks, but Im really hoping for a completre career overhaul that they would want to put in a DLC. gotta go big. If its to big they  might even mak a new game.

[kirmie44]

Career:Problems with Career & the suggested improvements:

   The main problem with the career is how lightweight it really is. There is very little to it, and it's hard to actually mess up. This is fine for some, but I think a lot of us were originally hoping for a bit more. A lot of what makes career modes great is the management. You need to be able to see your expenses and take risks. Squad tried to implement this before launch with that one building no one ever clicks on but it really doesn't work that well. a career mode should revolve around time and funds managment. You should see how much it costs to maintain a team of engineers as well as how long it takes to build a rocket. An alarm clock and construction time should be implemented. You should be able to speed up the construction of a craft with part failure chance going up. you should be able to fire staff to lower your costs and hire them as needed. There should be a monthly/yearly expense report. These features would go a long way to making career mode a better mode. A few more ideas would be including things like kerbal konstructs, allowing you to spend money to build more launch pads as well as just more infrastructure.  I don't like that particular mod too much because of how messy it looks but a lighter version of it could go a long way. The main point I would say is to look at a game like X-COM. It has a solid management system that would work beautifully in a game like KSP. even the kerbal upgrade sstem could be improved along the same lines.

[Pthigrivi]

11 hours ago, kirmie44 said:

I like where your going, we need a bit more structure and the ability to tell people where we are going as a Space Program. I think you are going a bit to small. These are minor tweeks, but Im really hoping for a completre career overhaul that they would want to put in a DLC. gotta go big. If its to big they  might even mak a new game.

Perhaps. Everyone has their own ideas about what's most needed. Its worth considering a few things though as you think about all this though:

What is KSP really about? What is the core experience that makes it fun and keeps players returning for hundreds if not thousands of hours? Ultimately I think the answer to this is simple: building rockets (and other contraptions) and flying them to other planets. That engineering puzzle is what keeps us all coming back over and over and everything else about the game should reenforce and dramatize that experience rather than distracting or drawing attention away from it. That's why mechanics like communications, reentry heat, and ISRU add so much to the game, whereas science at present falls a little flat. The idea of creating biomes and gathering points that unlock more and more parts is a good incentive process, but the actual played experience in the field ends up being more repetitive clicks than thoughtful engineering or piloting. We place all the applicable experiments on our vessel and hotkey them if we're smart, then on the surface its just matter of hitting a few buttons. Worse, if we want those "near above" recordings we're spending time dismissing half a dozen science readouts during landing or takeoff when we should be focusing on that core experience of flying. Hopefully some of the changes made in Breaking Ground will expand and make that experience more gratifying, but consolidating the clicky UI would be just as important. We'll have to wait and see.

I do like in principle the idea of part upgrades, but these upgrades really aught to be fairly minor, squeezing out little bits of efficiency late in the game. The reason for this is early in the game you still need parts that work. Part failure might be fun for some, but I think most folks will find it frustrating when a mission that took hours to plan and launch ends abruptly because a dead battery bricks their lander in the middle of descent. Most people will solve this by putting redundant backup parts on their vessels which will bloat part count. In general I just think the Apollo 13 type gameplay is better left to Making History mission builder scenarios. I do quite like the idea that experiments could yield some other type of value to players besides science points though and maybe upgrades could be part of that.  

I also quite like the idea of adding some form of KCT to the game so long as there was some kind of scaleable backstop or counter-incentive so players weren't just time-warping through it. The reason for this again is to keep things focused on the core fun of building and flying rockets. Having to consider trade-offs between long flight-duration, high-reward missions and quick-and-dirty ones or whether to build a low-tech rocket now or wait to build a higher-tech one later does bear directly on engineering and flight, but just clicking on the time-warp button and watching KSC flash from day to night over and over because that's what the game makes you do doesn't. It's also the reason I might caution against going too heavy on the management simulator angle. It's one thing to manage our pool of kerbalnauts and building up their skills--those are things that expand the in-flight experience and the planning that goes into it. Faceless engineers and ground crew are little harder to get invested in and are probably better left abstracted in research and vessel costs. We do though have other launch sites, so integrating and developing those and possibly others around kerbin could be cool. (Im not such a fan of off-world launch-sites personally. It's one thing to mine fuel on the Mun, but I don't think building rockets or machinery from raw materials on other worlds will be realistic for a long, long time.) 


 

Edited May 20, 2019 by Pthigrivi

[tater]

Any meaningful improvement in career mode would require a ground up replacement of science, tech tree, and the entire "contract" paradigm.

Gut it, and start over from scratch.

First, ask, then answer the question, "What is the goal of career mode?"

Everything else follows from this, and should accomplish the goal.

One answer is, "Provide the player with a story of space exploration as done by their own program." The story is just their missions, successes and failures, etc, but instead of seeming like random events, they make sense as an arc to the player. This would require a complete change in paradigm, with elements of the solar system being more unknown (existence and orbits known for most bodies, but not details until you get there (we had no idea what Mars looked like until Mariner 4).

Another answer is, "The player competes with other agencies in a race to space!" This would require an explicit (computer controlled) competitor. Time needs to matter (construction, R&D, etc), and there probably needs to be some chance of equipment failures.

There are other options, but the extant system is not fit for purpose, IMHO.

[Aelipse]

Brother, I hear you. I have spent over a year now playing KSP, most of it doing the career mode, and I do agree there is something missing. I would like to share a couple of points though, if I may.

One, being realistic does not equal being fun. Sure, there is a lot of depth just in the financial management of a space program, not to mention keeping your employees orderly and motivated, buying materials and parts from other companies (NASA collaborates with highly specialised companies from all over the world as far as I know) and so on and so forth. However, KSP is about building rockets and flying them to places. As Pthigrivi said, such aspects of the game would serve as a distraction from the main goal of the game.

I love the idea of being able to slightly improve the parts that have already been researched. I too came up with this notion when I was fantasizing about the possible improvements of the game. Something along the lines of improving the heat resistance of your nose cones by something like a 3 % margin, decreasing the weight of certain parts by a percent or two or increasing the structural strength and stability of specific parts ever so slightly. These changes could be very costly - both in funds and science - to provide some attractive end-game goals while not rendering the early game unplayable nor the late game overpowered and boring. Having these features locked until the whole tech tree is done might be also taken into consideration. Otherwise, the idea of faulty parts would IMHO cause more anger and frustration than joy of excessive realism.

A "fog of solar system" - generally just the idea of not knowing exactly the parameters of the other celestial bodies - is not a bad one. However people who would appreciate this feature the most are I imagine pretty much just the veterans of the game who can tell you the average temperature 5000 m above Laythe's surface from the top of their heads (hyperbole, yay!) and to them such a concept would be pretty useless. Also, what it would mean in practice is just having to send one more unmanned space probe to the place before you start building your space hotel and casino there (looking at you, Matt Lowne!). I cannot decide if all the effort of introducing this new feature would actually pay off in actual fun.

I am currently in a mid-game of my second career play through, and before I started, I decided to make things interesting. I use many mods; outer solar system to add some significant challenge for the end game, and the community tech tree to make the end game flights worth while. I use the life support mod (USI?) in conjunction with planetary base systems and deep freeze. I have plenty of new parts from OPT, Mk2 Expansion, Nuclear age by Porkjet and some other ones. What these mods have in common is they provide a ton of beautifully crafted and functional parts, while not being too overpowered (unlike for example Near Future Technologies, which is IMHO tremendously overpowered). I also took the liberty of adjusting the properties of some of the most powerful parts provided by mods, lowering their stats and make them much more balanced with the stock parts, and then I scattered these parts all over the rather large tech tree provided by CTT mod. I have turned the G-force limit on, given up the option to revert flight OR quickload the game in case I goof up. I can tell you, with all these changes, KSP feels like a completely different game as of now.

TLDR; The career mode is not too bad, and if you know how to improve and rebalance it with mods, your experience can be as fresh as playing a completely new game.

Edited May 20, 2019 by Aelipse

[kirmie44]

13 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

I do like in principle the idea of part upgrades, but these upgrades really aught to be fairly minor, squeezing out little bits of efficiency late in the game. The reason for this is early in the game you still need parts that work. Part failure might be fun for some, but I think most folks will find it frustrating when a mission that took hours to plan and launch ends abruptly because a dead battery bricks their lander in the middle of descent. Most people will solve this by putting redundant backup parts on their vessels which will bloat part count.

I do quite like the idea that experiments could yield some other type of value to players besides science points though and maybe upgrades could be part of that.  

I also quite like the idea of adding some form of KCT to the game so long as there was some kind of scaleable backstop or counter-incentive so players weren't just time-warping through it. The reason for this again is to keep things focused on the core fun of building and flying rockets. Having to consider trade-offs between long flight-duration, high-reward missions and quick-and-dirty ones or whether to build a low-tech rocket now or wait to build a higher-tech one later does bear directly on engineering and flight, but just clicking on the time-warp button and watching KSC flash from day to night over and over because that's what the game makes you do doesn't. It's also the reason I might caution against going too heavy on the management simulator angle. It's one thing to manage our pool of kerbalnauts and building up their skills--those are things that expand the in-flight experience and the planning that goes into it. Faceless engineers and ground crew are little harder to get invested in and are probably better left abstracted in research and vessel costs. We do though have other launch sites, so integrating and developing those and possibly others around kerbin could be cool. (Im not such a fan of off-world launch-sites personally. It's one thing to mine fuel on the Mun, but I don't think building rockets or machinery from raw materials on other worlds will be realistic for a long, long time.) 


 

5

I love that you're on board! So for the first critique, The base failure chance would be something for an experimental level of a part. This would basically only be the first time you use the part or if you rush the construction. I do agree that a base failure chance is a bit of a scapegoat, but something is needed, and I can't think of something to replace it. 

As for the fast-forwarding issue, I didn't quite say it, but I think monthly expenses and the alarm clock would go a long way towards stopping people from fast-forwarding.

Also, most of my ideas here are coming from X-COM. When I was thinking of managing other types of employees. I was thinking of a number/quantity as they do in X-COM for scientists and engineers.

[kirmie44]

10 hours ago, Aelipse said:

TLDR; The career mode is not too bad, and if you know how to improve and rebalance it with mods, your experience can be as fresh as playing a completely new game.

4

That is why I would like this to be a DLC or maybe even KSP 2. The modes aren't bad but they were far from ideal in my mind. However, some people are fine with them so the changes should be optional. Also, the really could use a decent influx.

[MajorTomtom]

To make things more interesting, they could add missions to the career, instead of making it a separate content. You would get all the traditional random contracts (test this, go there, plant flag) and scripted or pseudo random missions that would be more interesting, and may be added by people themselves, with a more constructed approach and narrative behind.

Otherwise, I agree 100% with you, the career has to be overhauled, maybe not in as much details/complexity but they do have to make it more interesting than a progressive sandbox.

Edited May 21, 2019 by MajorTomtom

[Pthigrivi]

10 hours ago, kirmie44 said:

As for the fast-forwarding issue, I didn't quite say it, but I think monthly expenses and the alarm clock would go a long way towards stopping people from fast-forwarding.

We've had a number of in-depth discussions about this very subject. As you rightly point out finding some kind of check to so players have to think twice before time-warping to get rewards is kind of the devil on the tightrope here. The idea (as with all good game mechanics) is to create forks--points for a player to make strategic decisions that effect the future of the game and spur cost/benefit analysis. There there are two ways to implement the cost in this equation--either on the front end with a time-based cost like monthly budgets, or on the back end with some form of reward drop-off. The trouble with the front end is that players of KSP have very different play-styles--some like to do a lot around KSOI, some like to fly around with planes, others like to send deep space probes and others like to jump as soon as they can to building bases on other planets. Monthly budgets get very difficult to scale for these players because each has a very different demand for time-warp. Its one thing to pay monthly bills if you're replenishing your coffers with lots of short-duration missions around KSOI, but a player who wants to send a probe out to Jool will find themselves quickly bankrupt. Thats why I think the time-based cost really has to come on the back-end with contract rewards so that each can be directly scaled to the duration of the mission. 

For illustration let's think about a typical career save. First you want to get to orbit. This could take just an hour of in-game time, but perhaps this is extended a bit by construction time on your first couple of vessels. Next come the Mun and Minmus which take a couple of days and about 20 days round-trip respectively, but again would take longer in total if you're investing time in research and construction or sneaking in some terrestrial exploration with planes. What you'd really want to do with construction and research time is scale things so that players could reasonably run a few to several crewed missions to each moon and unlock the first 3-4 tiers in the tech tree before the first Duna window opens up on day 236. If however those main Milestone missions to fly-by and land on different planets and moons had World First bonus rewards--say "Land on and return from the Mun before day 50" or "Flyby Duna by day 500" for a 50% boost in funds and reputation--players would have to think more carefully about how much time to invest in research before pulling the trigger without any of the budget-busting pitfalls incurred by legit time-warping with operational costs. The dates themselves could also be scaled directly to how long those missions would take round-trip factoring transfer windows so that there was a reasonable strategic choice to send probes deep into the Kerbol system as early as possible. The other benefit to calling them "World Firsts" is it implies some of the things Tater is looking for--a kind of space-race with an unnamed competitor. This gives the benefits of a foil while allowing players the leeway to interpret it as they will and create their own stories as they progress. 

And honestly I think all of this could be phased into Vanilla through the normal update process just as communications and delta-v redouts were. DLC's like Breaking Ground should really be reserved for big expansions to gameplay rather than fleshing out and filling in some of the gaps in career mode.

Edited May 21, 2019 by Pthigrivi

[kirmie44]

7 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

And honestly I think all of this could be phased into Vanilla through the normal update process just as communications and delta-v redouts were. DLC's like Breaking Ground should really be reserved for big expansions to gameplay rather than fleshing out and filling in some of the gaps in career mode.

2

I see where you're going. The budget thing was just a small part of the full concept. I think there could probably be ways to counter it with general business that would happen in the background (like maybe kerbals have a need for space flight grade thermometers that you could). that was a random idea. Even though it wasn't the best idle, failure chance could still raise with age.

I do think that an update like this would require some payment. We have to remember the game was declared finished ages ago and "supposed to" stay relatively the same. If you think about what has been released and what we want, the next DLC can be summed up in three mods (Infernal, KIS(maybe?), & Ground experiments). They have added some UI elements and a parachute for free updates. They might add alarm clock as a free update but they would never go so far as to something like construction time or planet discovery as free updates to the game. They need some incentive to improve the game that much.