A re-purposing of science

[Incarnation of Chaos]

2 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

I hear that, but my gripe with the contract system is the randomness of it and how its mostly useless outside cash rewards you receive, I like the progression part of it. I feel like it might not be that bad if the requirements are all set, there's no specific order they need to be completed in, and all of the contracts are constantly active in the background AND steps to unlocking parts end up being either useful in the long run or do well to train someone for their next endeavor.

I still don't like it because the beauty of the TT is that it doesn't railroad you into any one specific way for unlocking it; if you want to get science early-game by going to gilly instead of the mun or duna it's totally possible. Or perhaps you'd rather just get all of it from minmus and the mun.

KSP2 has been about more options, bigger sandboxes to play in, and more tools to stay on the places you visit since the first previews. This would be a considerable downgrade from even KSP1, and wouldn't really mesh with what we've seen of KSP2.

Also imagine how frustrating it would be to not get a key technology just because something bugged and one of your conditionals failed to fire? Or how much of a nightmare this would be for modders, since now modded parts don't "Count" for progression unless they explicitly patch them into the statements.

I just don't see it working well, or being recieved well by most of the community.

[mcwaffles2003]

21 minutes ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

I still don't like it because the beauty of the TT is that it doesn't railroad you into any one specific way for unlocking it; if you want to get science early-game by going to gilly instead of the mun or duna it's totally possible. Or perhaps you'd rather just get all of it from minmus and the mun.

 

Isn't that also part of the problem though, at least for career playthroughs? People have most of the TT unlocked before they're out of the kerbin system and are left without incentive to go any further.

 

Quote

KSP2 has been about more options, bigger sandboxes to play in, and more tools to stay on the places you visit since the first previews. This would be a considerable downgrade from even KSP1, and wouldn't really mesh with what we've seen of KSP2.

Wouldn't you rather then play in a sandbox mode anyway then? The point of a career is to give structure to the game with a set of short term and long term goals (main story and side quests) vs a sandbox providing the open-endedness to do anything you wanted. I mean, if what you want to do is just fire off to gilly then why are you even playing a career in the first place? Unless you just wan't the tech tree and finances in your way.

I felt the real downfall overall in career is the lack of structure after you've run through the kerbal system and established a space station. Then it's just reach all the other planets with no steps along the way. No establish a Duna station or near Kerbol station by bringing a series of parts there and assembling them in orbit or anything of finesse. I feel it will be just as bad if we can grind science by the 1st planet you get to in KSP 2 and achieve an orion drive or torchship... Where do you go from there and why? You're just back in the sandbox mode with no more structure to follow.

 

Quote

Also imagine how frustrating it would be to not get a key technology just because something bugged and one of your conditionals failed to fire? Or how much of a nightmare this would be for modders, since now modded parts don't "Count" for progression unless they explicitly patch them into the statements.

I'd rather not have a conversation about what could go wrong if a game breaking bug were to appear. Obviously a remedy would be the continuation of the cheat menu but if were going to talk about what could go wrong because specific hypothetical bugs pop up then we would move nowhere with infinite propellant and non-physical parts. If that bug appears (and it shouldn't)... fix it, were paying $60 for professional quality not an improved kraken drive.

Edited March 22, 2020 by mcwaffles2003

[Incarnation of Chaos]

47 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

Isn't that also part of the problem though, at least for career playthroughs? People have most of the TT unlocked before they're out of the kerbin system and are left without incentive to go any further.

 

Wouldn't you rather then play in a sandbox mode anyway then? The point of a career is to give structure to the game with a set of short term and long term goals (main story and side quests) vs a sandbox providing the open-endedness to do anything you wanted. I mean, if what you want to do is just fire off to gilly then why are you even playing a career in the first place? Unless you just wan't the tech tree and finances in your way.

I felt the real downfall overall in career is the lack of structure after you've run through the kerbal system and established a space station. Then it's just reach all the other planets with no steps along the way. No establish a Duna station or near Kerbol station by bringing a series of parts there and assembling them in orbit or anything of finesse. I feel it will be just as bad if we can grind science by the 1st planet you get to in KSP 2 and achieve an orion drive or torchship... Where do you go from there and why? You're just back in the sandbox mode with no more structure to follow.

 

I'd rather not have a conversation about what could go wrong if a game breaking bug were to appear. Obviously a remedy would be the continuation of the cheat menu but if were going to talk about what could go wrong because specific hypothetical bugs pop up then we would move nowhere with infinite propellant and non-physical parts. If that bug appears (and it shouldn't)... fix it, were paying $60 for professional quality not an improved kraken drive.

Gonna do this kinda backwards, so forgive me. But the only reason i mentioned that was that this is a common mode of failure for contacts now, and i couldn't see how they'd really prevent it from occurring. Therefore to me it's important to consider; rather than more rare/specific bugs.

Being able to farm the entire TT within the Kerbin system is somewhat of an issue, but it could be easily corrected by reducing the science multipliers within the kerbal system. And Gilly is actually pretty easy to get to, with transfer windows to Eve occurring much more frequently than Duna. So there's multiple reasons you'd want to go for Gilly rather than Duna or other planets within a career save; especially if you're not as experienced with transfers.

As far as the center portion; this i do actually agree with. But i don't think a rigid structure that forces extremely specific achievements is needed to get a better sense of progression; especially if they decide you can't just make the fuels for Orion or Torchships in the Kerbin system easily or make the concentrations so low that they'd take hundreds of days of game time to get enough to do anything interesting.

[mcwaffles2003]

29 minutes ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

But the only reason i mentioned that was that this is a common mode of failure for contacts now, and i couldn't see how they'd really prevent it from occurring. Therefore to me it's important to consider; rather than more rare/specific bugs.

Well I would hope it being built by a professional studio as opposed to a hobbyist and coworkers at a marketing firm would help alleviate buginess in general. I don't think the ability to accurately check condition statements is asking to much as thats pretty basic stuff.

 

29 minutes ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

Being able to farm the entire TT within the Kerbin system is somewhat of an issue, but it could be easily corrected by reducing the science multipliers within the kerbal system. And Gilly is actually pretty easy to get to, with transfer windows to Eve occurring much more frequently than Duna. So there's multiple reasons you'd want to go for Gilly rather than Duna or other planets within a career save; especially if you're not as experienced with transfers.

As far as the center portion; this i do actually agree with. But i don't think a rigid structure that forces extremely specific achievements is needed to get a better sense of progression; especially if they decide you can't just make the fuels for Orion or Torchships in the Kerbin system easily or make the concentrations so low that they'd take hundreds of days of game time to get enough to do anything interesting.

I'm not saying it isn't easy to get to Gilly or that you should be unable to do so, but its somewhat akin to sending a ship to phobos before going to the moon. I think, as in many RPGs, the Kerbin system should be likened to "Act I" where the hand holding is heavy and the structure most rigidly formed. After that it settles a bit and broadens out within the Kerbolar system with a few overall goals preparing you for interstellar travel. Finally, once there, the scope should heavily broaden with one conclusive ultimate goal and perhaps a continuous goal that is never really fulfilled for the post game continuance.

To be a bit more specific I guess, getting the more basic parts in the game should require a player to go through the basic motions and help get new players up to speed with precise requirements, but once you're leaving the Kerbal system the conditions could get a little more loose. Instead of requiring specific orbits around specific bodies they could apply to multiple bodies within the Kerbolar system, maybe separating the planets into difficulty regions. Completing goals at harder difficulty regions could also unlock parts with similar medium difficulty requirements, allowing a fast track for the more experienced players. But personally I hope the Daedalus drive is locked behind a "set up a gas giant refinary/refueling station" and "set up a self reliant colony" type of tech wall making those a required goal for interstellar travel. Then idk what the overall mechanics will look like in the new interstellar systems, but I hope we don't get torchships until we establish ourselves that far out in some way.

So in short, go from very rigid structure to very loose structure and by the time you complete the ultimate completable goal in the game (maybe have at least one self reliant colony in every system or fill out the entire wiki as stated in the OP) you end up in what is essentially a heavily infrastructured sandbox mode. Then people who want to continue can do so or they can more naturally just go into making a sandbox career setting up things as they wish from the start from Kerbin.

 

Edited March 22, 2020 by mcwaffles2003

[HansonKerman]

hmm. I like it, except for the gradual science part. KSP is great for the little unrealistic things, and an in game wiki like the KSPedia that you have to get in Career would be very cool. Yeah!

[Hydranaut]

On 3/22/2020 at 6:31 PM, mcwaffles2003 said:

What about having a mix of conditional statements to unlock techs? Or even individual parts? For instance:

To unlock the terrier engine you must first:

• Reach orbit with a 1.25 m class rocket and " X " amount of mass (represents capability to even use the engine)
• Bring a pressmat barometer to above 70 km (understand the atmospheric pressure conditions that make it useful)
• Pay " X " amount for prototyping before mass production

Or

To unlock LT-2 Landing strut you must first:

• Reach low munar orbit with 1.25 m class rocket (demonstrate you are capable of reaching another body to land on with a rocket that would need these struts)
• Send impactor to munar surface (demonstration of reaching that bodies surface and gathered data on its characteristics)
• Ascend to at least 500 meters on kerbin and proform a landing with LT-1 Landing Struts [no parachutes allowed] (demonstrate you can perform a controlled landing

<SNIP>

I like this idea on the basis that it gives the player something to do. But I also agree with Incarnation of Chaos that it would make it too much like the Contract System. One of the great things about KSP is the freedom you have over your own progression through the game.

I think a better idea is, instead of making the conditions requirements, we make them incentives. ie. for every conditional you achieve, you get a slight discount, eg 5-10% off of the science/fund cost for the node. It is an extra challenge for those who want it, but the cost of not doing these challenges is not too much to the player.

[Incarnation of Chaos]

42 minutes ago, Hydranaut said:

I like this idea on the basis that it gives the player something to do. But I also agree with Incarnation of Chaos that it would make it too much like the Contract System. One of the great things about KSP is the freedom you have over your own progression through the game.

I think a better idea is, instead of making the conditions requirements, we make them incentives. ie. for every conditional you achieve, you get a slight discount, eg 5-10% off of the science/fund cost for the node. It is an extra challenge for those who want it, but the cost of not doing these challenges is not too much to the player.

I really like that idea, i suggested reaching certain milestones leading to fund/science cost reductions similar to Civ VI's boosts in a different thread. But i like the idea of blending a series of small challenges into a big boost for tech.

 

[έķ νίĻĻάίή]

I say that science should be able to be used to "improve" engines, or something like that. Improve means improving the vaccum efficiency of an engine or reduce the fuel consumption of an engine to an extent. 

[OOM]

Karbalism is some kind of slag, to be honest ...

[Incarnation of Chaos]

21 hours ago, έķ νίĻĻάίή said:

I say that science should be able to be used to "improve" engines, or something like that. Improve means improving the vaccum efficiency of an engine or reduce the fuel consumption of an engine to an extent. 

Eh; not all engines can have their ISP's improved. Also "Improving the efficiency" would also reduce fuel consumption; since that's basically what ISP measures.

But i wouldn't mind being able to select nozzle types for each engine; slapping a bigger bell on a atmospheric engine would still help them in vaccum. But what you could do is have certain milestones/levels reduce the dry mass of engines/tanks/crew cabins; to reflect more modern materials and techniques.

And that could be applied to almost any part.

[έķ νίĻĻάίή]

27 minutes ago, Incarnation of Chaos said:

Eh; not all engines can have their ISP's improved. Also "Improving the efficiency" would also reduce fuel consumption; since that's basically what ISP measures.

But i wouldn't mind being able to select nozzle types for each engine; slapping a bigger bell on a atmospheric engine would still help them in vaccum. But what you could do is have certain milestones/levels reduce the dry mass of engines/tanks/crew cabins; to reflect more modern materials and techniques.

And that could be applied to almost any part.

Know what? Yeah, that kinda makes sense. I like that idea more.

[Empiro]

I think the science system definitely needs to be greatly revamped.

Part of it is that it's just obtuse -- clicking on various parts, then doing the take-experiments-store-experiments dance. We all know how to do this, but none of this is intuitive to newer players and it's not fun for serving of gameplay in any way. The game should automatically perform science when the situation is right.

Breaking ground helps gives you more reasons to bring rovers and bringing large, somewhat unwieldy instruments, which is also a good thing. In the basic game, sticking a thermometer or barometer on the side of the rocket doesn't really add much to the gameplay.

I think that having science unlocking information about the planet would be a nice addition, especially if you can add a bit of randomness to every game start, so that players get to discover new things each playthrough. There are already mods that let you map biomes, resources and so on. Having other information be available (like temperature or whatnot) would be pretty awesome, and can lead to some interesting challenges (for example, a planet that is very hostile to life/colonies except for small safe pockets). It also gives you a reason to have science instruments in sandbox mode.

Having tech progression more tied to achievements could work, if the achievements were reasonably free-form. For example, my favorite part of the existing contracts system are the first milestones achievements. You don't have to explicitly take these contracts, but just happen the first time you do something. Combining that with a bit of guidance (suggesting the next steps), or giving you an extra bonus for doing something difficult (if you can land on the Mun, but do it this way, you'll get even more science/money).

[mcwaffles2003]

8 hours ago, Empiro said:

Part of it is that it's just obtuse -- clicking on various parts, then doing the take-experiments-store-experiments dance. We all know how to do this, but none of this is intuitive to newer players and it's not fun for serving of gameplay in any way. The game should automatically perform science when the situation is right.

This is why I suggested the Kerbalism-esque continuous science feature, along with making partial mappings of things like atmospheric conditions possible. If we stay on the (Y/N) click and its done style you would only get full maps or no map. Also, in my experience with Kerbalism, having to sustain a condition over time vs reach that condition for a single moment and click a button has altered and refined my designs. It hasn't felt intrusive to my playing but instead enhancing, but that's just my experience with the mod and its format.

8 hours ago, Empiro said:

I think that having science unlocking information about the planet would be a nice addition, especially if you can add a bit of randomness to every game start, so that players get to discover new things each playthrough. There are already mods that let you map biomes, resources and so on. Having other information be available (like temperature or whatnot) would be pretty awesome, and can lead to some interesting challenges (for example, a planet that is very hostile to life/colonies except for small safe pockets). It also gives you a reason to have science instruments in sandbox mode.

I'd like that as well but I don't see that entering base game as it may lead to many more complications than it's worth overall. But, as a mod I would jump to it in a heart beat and I would hope the graph I mentioned earlier would not be pictures but actual plats of the data collected so it would be expandable to all user created content. I don't think this would be difficult or unreasonable as creating simple graphs is not computationally difficult.

8 hours ago, Empiro said:

Having tech progression more tied to achievements could work, if the achievements were reasonably free-form. For example, my favorite part of the existing contracts system are the first milestones achievements. You don't have to explicitly take these contracts, but just happen the first time you do something. Combining that with a bit of guidance (suggesting the next steps), or giving you an extra bonus for doing something difficult (if you can land on the Mun, but do it this way, you'll get even more science/money).

On 4/11/2020 at 2:41 AM, Hydranaut said:

I like this idea on the basis that it gives the player something to do. But I also agree with Incarnation of Chaos that it would make it too much like the Contract System. One of the great things about KSP is the freedom you have over your own progression through the game.

I think a better idea is, instead of making the conditions requirements, we make them incentives. ie. for every conditional you achieve, you get a slight discount, eg 5-10% off of the science/fund cost for the node. It is an extra challenge for those who want it, but the cost of not doing these challenges is not too much to the player.

The examples I listed earlier were off the top of my head and obviously too restrictive, but I was trying to give a general idea as opposed to a well thought-out final product. Generally, I would just like to see the science progression model moved more towards a background slow collective process as opposed to completing a large mission and advancing a space programs tech level by 25 years. I would hope that the majority of the conditions would be things people would do anyway where maybe a few could be more specialized to try to challenge the player in ways they hadn't considered. Hopefully, this will draw a larger portion of the player base out of their comfort zone (the Kerbin system) and with some kind of goals constantly set it could give the player some guidance, a feeling of progression, without acting as hand holding.

 

[Empiro]

13 hours ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

The examples I listed earlier were off the top of my head and obviously too restrictive, but I was trying to give a general idea as opposed to a well thought-out final product. Generally, I would just like to see the science progression model moved more towards a background slow collective process as opposed to completing a large mission and advancing a space programs tech level by 25 years. I would hope that the majority of the conditions would be things people would do anyway where maybe a few could be more specialized to try to challenge the player in ways they hadn't considered. Hopefully, this will draw a larger portion of the player base out of their comfort zone (the Kerbin system) and with some kind of goals constantly set it could give the player some guidance, a feeling of progression, without acting as hand holding.

 

Drawing players out of the Kerbin system could be fixed with smaller changes (for example, if you get less and less science after the first biome on the same celestial body, it would prevent biome-hopping on Minmus from letting you fill out the entire tech tree).

I definitely like the idea of a slow collective process, but tying that to the gameplay in a good way is hard. Anything that's game-clock driven wouldn't work by itself, since you have 100,000x time acceleration at your fingertips (and it's one reason the labs are not very balanced). You want the reward loop to be (do something fun/challenging -> get science to let you do even more stuff). In KSP 1, biome-hopping Minmus or time accelerating a lab are two strong ways of getting science, but neither are particularly fun nor challenging.

Edited April 17, 2020 by Empiro

[Guest]

You can have a time-based mechanic if you have more than one. Time accelerating a lab wouldn't work nearly as well if Kerbals in it needed life support, for example. Game mechanics should not exist in isolation, if they do, it's a bad game design (which is all over the place in KSP1, of course). There are many ways to prevent timewarp from breaking clock-driven mechanics.

[DStaal]

30 minutes ago, Dragon01 said:

You can have a time-based mechanic if you have more than one. Time accelerating a lab wouldn't work nearly as well if Kerbals in it needed life support, for example. Game mechanics should not exist in isolation, if they do, it's a bad game design (which is all over the place in KSP1, of course). There are many ways to prevent timewarp from breaking clock-driven mechanics.

Which then makes years-long journeys to other stars under timewarp impractical - especially if you have colonies as well.  If you limit clock-driven mechanics, you have to be careful not to be breaking the utility of timewarp.

[Guest]

Not impractical, just harder. You just have to consider your life support needs and give the ship enough supplies. By the time you go interstellar, science requirements should be well in excess of what you can get out of abusing science labs. 

Of course, ideally the whole system will be reworked from bottom-up, anyway.

[Bingleberry]

I picked this game up a couple months ago, and have had a really hard time putting it down... but, as many of the posters above me have indicated, the science progression is severely flawed... and I, like you all, seem to have overlapping ideas for improvement of data gathering, and a better flow for the TT.
 

I started the game in sandbox mode, was intimated by the sheer number of “things,” and realized I needed a tutorial and a flow to the parts that would make each unlocked part understandable, and ultimately useful. For example, the concept of nuclear engines is cool, but you can’t use those bad boys in an atmosphere... without a basic understanding of isp and twr, the new player would not know this. In a career mode, there should be some initial handholding, just to get some of the basic principles in place... another example, docking ports are so far down the TT that it doesn’t make Apollo-style CM-LEM practical early on, even though it is the more fuel efficient solution (and sending a kerbal to get in your LEM, by eva, without a docking procedure is both stupid, and a lost opportunity to teach the ever important docking procedure.)... rendezvous and docking should be taught and pushed hard early on in ksp2, since it’ll be necessary for greater progression.

 

I read in an earlier post that TT progression should be treated with a little more historical accuracy... could not agree more! Unlocking a turbofan after coming back from Gilly is ludicrous, because the tech involved in an interplanetary flight far exceeds that in a turbofan. That said, I feel like the game should introduce flight with the “jet age,” and rockets with the v-2 (or equivalent), and guide the player in building and flying basic jets and rockets... perhaps as a stand-alone tutorial, or the beginning of a career mode. But, like I said above, the separate CM-LEM design was necessity, because it saved fuel, docking ports should be earlier to unlock, and this mechanic would also “force” the player to understand orbital rendezvous; again, crucial for things like orbital bases, and orbital ship construction.

 

And now, on to the actual topic of science... first, I am a biochemist, data gathering and analysis has been my academic and professional life for almost 20 years... so, I’d also like to see the science element fleshed out in a number of ways, from gathering, to analysis, and finally application to new tech. Data gathering can be any number of things, temperature and pressure are simple and basic measure, but like the OP suggested, it would be cool if these instruments could be used to fill out altitude-pressure/temperature graphs, this would inform us of the practicality of certain types of descents, ascents and colony formation (perhaps deep space telescopes to determine if planets have habitable atmospheric composition). Once on the surface, we could take surface samples and subject them to spectroscopy, in situ (like the curiosity rover, for example), and get a basic understanding of their makeup; these are quick tests... in order to unlock all of the sample’s secrets, we must process it at KSC, or the mobile lab (which is pretty much useless in its current location in the TT). In addition to filling out planetary details in an encyclopedia (where’s the best place to mine fuel and other resources, for example), it teaches the kerbals about new space age materials... like, discover how to process aluminum or titanium for certain parts in the TT. Or strap a bunch of instruments in a pod with a test animal, and learn about its physiology so that improved life support could be discovered... and they could do so many interesting things with life support tech, like stasis pods to prevent acceleration damage from an Orion drive, or improvements to radiation shielding.
 

In addition to tying funds to building craft, funds should also be used to unlock the tech, through some form of R&D, where funding and research conditions (like the examples above) are met. Right now, as those have stated, once the TT is filled, there’s no rationale to waste craft mass with unnecessary instruments, and I’d like to see motivation for placing these instruments on my craft, and using them throughout the entire game.

 

This all leads into the bizarre contract system... seriously, I put my first craft on Gilly, and all of a sudden the contracts are telling me to mine ore on Laythe, and bring it to tylo, or something like that... I hadn’t even unlocked the drills yet! Contracts should make sense, and if they’re tied to a career mode, the contracts should have an organic progression... like, after unlocking engine x, the manufacturer contracts you to test engine x on the launchpad, launch engine x and take a pressure/temp reading, launch engine x into a suborbital trajectory... contracts should be three-fold... early game, they should be used to help teach new players the games mechanics and nuances... through the game, these should be the main source of funding (and reputation? Not sure what uses this has in the current career mode)... and as you reach later in the game, it should provide motivation to keep on exploring (if I put an orbital base around one planet, give me an incentive to put one around its moon, too) or perhaps give a reason to create relay networks, because comms and relay satellites are pretty much useless, aside from a contract requiring you to include an antenna on your base... the comms/relay tech is another lost opportunity that could really be fleshed out in a ksp2 career mode.

 

Ok, there’s my wall of text... I’m sure I’ll think of a million other things that I forgot to mention, but those are basically my thoughts on the matter.

[mcwaffles2003]

11 hours ago, Bingleberry said:

And now, on to the actual topic of science... first, I am a biochemist, data gathering and analysis has been my academic and professional life for almost 20 years... so, I’d also like to see the science element fleshed out in a number of ways, from gathering, to analysis, and finally application to new tech. Data gathering can be any number of things, temperature and pressure are simple and basic measure, but like the OP suggested, it would be cool if these instruments could be used to fill out altitude-pressure/temperature graphs, this would inform us of the practicality of certain types of descents, ascents and colony formation (perhaps deep space telescopes to determine if planets have habitable atmospheric composition). Once on the surface, we could take surface samples and subject them to spectroscopy, in situ (like the curiosity rover, for example), and get a basic understanding of their makeup; these are quick tests... in order to unlock all of the sample’s secrets, we must process it at KSC, or the mobile lab (which is pretty much useless in its current location in the TT). In addition to filling out planetary details in an encyclopedia (where’s the best place to mine fuel and other resources, for example), it teaches the kerbals about new space age materials... like, discover how to process aluminum or titanium for certain parts in the TT. Or strap a bunch of instruments in a pod with a test animal, and learn about its physiology so that improved life support could be discovered... and they could do so many interesting things with life support tech, like stasis pods to prevent acceleration damage from an Orion drive, or improvements to radiation shielding.
 

In addition to tying funds to building craft, funds should also be used to unlock the tech, through some form of R&D, where funding and research conditions (like the examples above) are met. Right now, as those have stated, once the TT is filled, there’s no rationale to waste craft mass with unnecessary instruments, and I’d like to see motivation for placing these instruments on my craft, and using them throughout the entire game.

This guy gets it!

The bold areas are close to what I talked about in my first thread about science:

On 10/23/2019 at 10:35 PM, mcwaffles2003 said:

I wish science could be useful in the ways of how science is actually useful. We visit planets and moons with everything essentially already discovered, we know where an atmosphere begins and its thickness vs altitude, we know what temperature it is and the composition of its atmosphere before ever launching a rocket. This is why I originally suggested creating a game catalog where in data is captured and maps out all the systems. This way we would need to find where bodies exist and the paths they move along, send probes to investigate how one could land on them once theyre reached, and finally, find out why we wanna go there in the first place.

The missions should still focus on profit, were running a space program, but what does space have to offer? Perhaps you might want to set up an industrial mining colony and send back your product to kerbin to be sold to the market. What bodies have materials worth mining and where are they? To find out we should send a probe to spectroscopically observe the the planets soil for trace rare minerals, followed by landing at areas of high concentration and taking core samples, after this one could set up a prospecting colony to begin small scale excavation to see if this venture would be lucrative. If all looks well ship 100 kerbals there, expand the operation and take in the profit (advancing technologies and interstellar transport isn't cheap you know). Perhaps thats also how we could create upgrades... if you want tech advanced it costs money, a lot of money, I've never heard of cheap R&D at least. So I agree running current equipment should count towards tech progress but also having funded labs on the ground.

Maybe unlocking tech shouldn't be instant but instead each tech advancement has a progress bar dependent on both related part use and funded research. I think if youre using a chem rocket that should highly count towards progress of other chem rockets but definitely shouldn't count for say... ion thrusters. New tech branches should have to be discovered solely through R&D and breakthroughs to new fields should be very expensive, acting as gate keepers to ability to expand out further.

This feeds a recursive intuitive cycle:

Explore - Find prospective planets

Discover - Send probes to discover features of the planets

Colonize - Send probes/kerbals to create an outpost

Exploit - Mine, refine, and transport profitable materials back to kerbin 

Research - Utilize profit to fund higher efficiency transport, machining equipment, QoL systems, etc...

 

Essentially a 4X type system where we omit "eXterminate" and replace it with research and form a closed loop until the whole universe is colonized and theres nowhere left to go.... (mods can fix that part)

I feel this would hook in really well making more intuitive purpose to both science and colonization beyond tech advancement and new launch pads.

Edited April 19, 2020 by mcwaffles2003

[afafsa]

This is a good thread so I'm bumping it.

The KSP1 system of launching missions to accomplish contracts to get money in order to do the missions you actually want to do is a workable system, but it's not a great system. I think a better model would be encouraging players to launch missions for no other reason than their own curiosity. For a game about exploration, a lot of the magic is ruined by being able to open the map and zoom over Jool to look around.

Though its inevitable you need it as a system to gatekeep the higher end tech from players, grinding out new parts shouldn't be the focus of the game. Science shouldn't just be an abstract representation of progress, but should accurately shape what you know about the universe. The main map should start as a stylized representation of what ground telescopes would know that grows more detailed over time. Duna should have an entire Wikipedia of history to learn, but you're not going to know anything about it until you get boots on the ground visiting all the different biomes and setting up outposts. But you'll need to do recon first. Duna should be nothing more than a fuzzy red dot until you preform your first flyby. Your knowledge of its atmosphere or soil shouldn't be available until you drop in a lander with the right equipment or perform the right scan from orbit, but this would be important information to know before designing the manned missions that will get you the interesting stuff.

This could be a really cool process for interstellar missions. Even knowing if they have planets should require launching a Kepler-like mission and knowing anything more than their size and mass should require launching something like the FOCAL mission (sending a telescope to the solar gravitational focal point way out in the Kuiper belt to get a halfway decent snapshot of an exo-planet). Learning more than a simple picture might start with flyby missions where you try to jam as much science equipment as possible into the tiniest probe you can, then flinging at the nearest star system with as much delta-V as you can manage. All of this would happen before you even think about doing some insane Daedalus drive project.

Point being, designing each new mission should start with the question "what do I want to learn?"

[PlutoISaPlanet]

3 hours ago, afafsa said:

 

Point being, designing each new mission should start with the question "what do I want to learn?"

Couldn't say it any better. We explore space to learn, yet ksp has never reflected that. Each planet only has a paragraph of data, and that is a shame.

[mcwaffles2003]

@PlutoISaPlanet, @afafsa

Thanks for the bump, really hope @Nate Simpson and the other devs see this as I'm pretty proud of the reception this idea had in the poll with less than 13% flat out disagreeing and nearly 2/3 flat out agreeing.

To those reading who haven't voted yet, please vote!

[afafsa]

17 minutes ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

@PlutoISaPlanet, @afafsa

Thanks for the bump, really hope @Nate Simpson and the other devs see this as I'm pretty proud of the reception this idea had in the poll with less than 13% flat out disagreeing and nearly 2/3 flat out agreeing.

To those reading who haven't voted yet, please vote!

In line with the OP, Kerbalism is a fantastic mod that rethinks the science system in a really cool way. It's unfortunately pretty intimidating because it's still buggy and isn't explained well to new players, but it is a vast improvement over the old "click button for science" system. There are a lot of good ideas to borrow from it since it does a good job encouraging the player to think about what orbits they want to deploy different science payloads into.

The more interesting engineering problems I have to solve, the happier I'll be.

[PlutoISaPlanet]

4 hours ago, mcwaffles2003 said:

@PlutoISaPlanet, @afafsa

Thanks for the bump, really hope @Nate Simpson and the other devs see this as I'm pretty proud of the reception this idea had in the poll with less than 13% flat out disagreeing and nearly 2/3 flat out agreeing.

To those reading who haven't voted yet, please vote!

I hope Nate and others see this! Honestly, I hope they are already doing most of the recommendations in this thread because if they are not then they might screw up science, and science is already pretty screwed up.

BTW lowkey this thread should probably be pinned.

Edited July 10, 2020 by PlutoISaPlanet

[PlutoISaPlanet]

Man this thread is important, yet the conversation has died.