KSP 2 should let you play as either the 'United Kerbal States' or the 'Kerbiet Union' for a Space Race

[glr476]

Regardless of which one you pick it would be cool if you competed with the other agency in a space race and this could affect funds and reputation. 

Losing a world first to the rival agency should lower your reputation somewhat, though not as much as failed missions or dead kerbonauts, in an effort to recreate the space race feel of the 1960s. This would create extra incentive for the player to do things quickly and add an interesting new dimension to the game where you aren't the only space agency on the planet. 

There could be so much flavor added with this too. For example you could have a policy where you encourage your leader either, JFKerbal,  or Nikita Kerbchev, to make a "Go to the Mun"  speech which will give certain benefits but have major reputation and maybe funding repercussions if you fail to meet the deadline or the rival agency beats you there. 

There are other potential characters like Lyndon B Kerbson and Sergei Kerborolev. (really like these names lol)

There are lots of other good quotes too.

"What can we do, how can we keep up?" - JFKerbal

"I believe that this nation should commit, before X, of landing a Kerbal on the Mun and returning him safely to the Earth." - JFKerbal

"Would  you rather us be a second-rate nation or should we spend a little money?" -  Lyndon B Kerbson

"Control of space means control of the world." - Lyndon B Kerbson

"Whether you like it or not history is on our side. We will bury you!" - Nikita Kerbchev

Some others

"We don't know anything about it, we are all asleep down here." - NASA Administrator Reponses to reporter calling about Yuri Gagarin at 3 AM

"The gap is not closing, but increasing!" - Pravada 1960s

 

 

 

Edited November 22, 2020 by glr476

[James Kerman]

Welcome to the forum @glr476, your suggestion has been moved to KSP 2 discussion.

[shdwlrd]

Would only make sense in multiplayer, not single player. In single player I wouldn't want to be locked into one style of play, nor do I want to be competing against an AI. I would want to accomplish my goals on my own timetable however I deem necessary. 

KSP is challenging enough, we don't need an AI completing goals before we even figure out what we are supposed to be doing.

[mcwaffles2003]

On 11/22/2020 at 3:15 AM, shdwlrd said:

Would only make sense in multiplayer, not single player. In single player I wouldn't want to be locked into one style of play, nor do I want to be competing against an AI. I would want to accomplish my goals on my own timetable however I deem necessary. 

KSP is challenging enough, we don't need an AI completing goals before we even figure out what we are supposed to be doing.

Not to mention how would playing and racing against an AI even work? The concept seems very messy.

[vv3k70r]

Space race is a story of the past. Involved empire dosent exist any longer (however I was born under its heavy boots and seen this absurd on my own).

I suspect new generation have they own dreams, and they own heroes. Space agency is another story of the past - now there are private companies that run the bussines and goverments are those in deep debts. Of course it is intresting story (and there are many Germans to remember), but for my children it is considered somwhere around dinosaurs and Flintstones. Computers to be moved around by a forklift and landlines is nothing they have experienced as my other stories about programing in asembler shifting adresess and memory index.

They consider da Mun is done by ancestors, they looking further for goals. Target of such games are old geeks on pension?

Edited November 23, 2020 by vv3k70r

[starcaptain]

I'm actually thinking about how borders are supposed to be represented in the game, even if they did exist.

Like in real life: imagine you were by yourself on planet Earth, with all the buildings there and your little rocket ship to go where you pleased. If you go to places like Russia or Korea or India, you'll see that borders are a thing. But they're just fences. They don't really mean anything unless you have radio chatter snarking at you, telling you to please leave or somesuch. And even if they were implemented somehow, it would not fit in the gameplay core to punish the player for violating airspace-- a distinctive that would vanish if they went high enough anyway.

National representation in the game I think is just as cosmetic as the flag you choose. Having rival nations or rival space programs doesn't really fit in my mind with what the game is supposed to be.

[Guest]

It sounds like a cool idea at first, and welcome to the forum!

But this game is about colonization not space agency. So I think it would be very confusing. 

[vv3k70r]

1 minute ago, The Doodling Astronaut said:

But this game is about colonization not space agency. So I think it would be very confusing. 

When I play career I see this as runing company - contracts, employing kerbonauts and costs. It is about making money to spend them on more substantial contracts to get more funding. i can colonize if I get paid^^

Less important part of comment with small font.

Despite the colonization dosent have any sense (because of technology) but expansion for heavy industri have all - it is easier to mine, process and send to space from any minable celestial body like moon or asteroids or even mars just because of dirt (Earth) have a nasty atmosphere (oxidizing metal), dense atmosphere, high gravity. I do not see that anybody would have children in lower then 1g - they will start walking faster, but never on planet dirt. So mining and procesing outpost yes, but to live there and rise children is for curent technology (and any expected in near future) out of reason.

As far I see KSP2 is focused on mining, procesing and trade routes - raising young Jebs to set them on the top of the booster and ignite is just to make it human friendly. But if we get to this point - orginising production is out of the grasp for most of the population even in games. It is why they are employees and not runing own production.

It is complex game and 12yo children playin it (most of them without any succes). If it will be more complex what would be the target customer?

In KSP1 rovers and planes after one or two missions are really boring.

I do not have opinion about it, I just think that is many whing to consider for publisher what he will sell, and who gonna be the target customer. And who gonna pay and use the content without alt+F12.

I see that for children to design rocket that go away att all is lot of fun. To plan with details a whole mission it would be a cleaver teenager. So this complexity looks like made for geeks. I have nothing against, but there is a publisher that have to pay wages and how many geeks on the world do we have?

[dave1904]

I would honestly like a rival space agency so we have a difficulty to be fair. One issue I always had with ksp was that there was not time pressure. Using real life nations and names are something that should be left out of KSP however. Not even anything that comes close to it. We have it in game atm to a slight extent but If there were nations I would want them totally kerbalised. 

[jimmymcgoochie]

KSP2 is very focussed on the future- advanced technologies, interstellar travel and space colonisation- not the past. While a competitive multiplayer mode would be possible, actually developing an AI system that could build and launch its own rockets as a competitor agency sounds like more work than it's worth.

Many of KSP's parts are analogous to real things in their names, appearances and functions; there's the whole 'Making History' expansion which adds a lot more of the same to recreate real life missions like Apollo and Soyuz along with missions based on real events; not to mention the RSS/RO/RP-1 combo to literally let you play KSP like you're the real NASA or Roscosmos (or whatever they called it in the Soviet days) and compete against the real life timelines. I see no need to continue that trend in KSP2 when the biggest part of that game has been the interplanetary/interstellar thing that is still many years in the future of human spaceflight.

 

 

 

 

[Tw1]

No, this would weaken the game, Kerbal should not make itself an unimaginative copy of Earth's history. You have the freedom to approach the journey to space in many different ways, there's no need to arbitrarily tie it to what happened here on Earth.

Infact, I think they should deliberately try to distance themselves from it more, and avoid too much references to human space programs beyond what would come naturally due to the way rockets work.

Plus, I like the thought of it being a global, united effort to get to space, above petty squabbles. By not including stuff, they leave room for the imagination. 

Edited November 23, 2020 by Tw1

[kerbiloid]

For greater historical realism the space race KSP  should be run on sliding rulers and paper sheets.
Maybe also on 4 kb RAM command-line systems.

[DerkyJerkyWreaksHavoc]

On 11/23/2020 at 3:01 PM, kerbiloid said:

For greater historical realism the space race KSP  should be run on sliding rulers and paper sheets.
Maybe also on 4 kb RAM command-line systems.

R.I.P Patience

On 11/23/2020 at 11:32 AM, vv3k70r said:

When I play career I see this as runing company - contracts, employing kerbonauts and costs. It is about making money to spend them on more substantial contracts to get more funding. i can colonize if I get paid^^

Less important part of comment with small font.

Despite the colonization dosent have any sense (because of technology) but expansion for heavy industri have all - it is easier to mine, process and send to space from any minable celestial body like moon or asteroids or even mars just because of dirt (Earth) have a nasty atmosphere (oxidizing metal), dense atmosphere, high gravity. I do not see that anybody would have children in lower then 1g - they will start walking faster, but never on planet dirt. So mining and procesing outpost yes, but to live there and rise children is for curent technology (and any expected in near future) out of reason.

As far I see KSP2 is focused on mining, procesing and trade routes - raising young Jebs to set them on the top of the booster and ignite is just to make it human friendly. But if we get to this point - orginising production is out of the grasp for most of the population even in games. It is why they are employees and not runing own production.

It is complex game and 12yo children playin it (most of them without any succes). If it will be more complex what would be the target customer?

In KSP1 rovers and planes after one or two missions are really boring.

I do not have opinion about it, I just think that is many whing to consider for publisher what he will sell, and who gonna be the target customer. And who gonna pay and use the content without alt+F12.

I see that for children to design rocket that go away att all is lot of fun. To plan with details a whole mission it would be a cleaver teenager. So this complexity looks like made for geeks. I have nothing against, but there is a publisher that have to pay wages and how many geeks on the world do we have?

Is it against the rules to launch a rocket at the opposition space agency's VAB because you hate them or you want them to lose. because for all i know, this might be the Next Gen DLC for Call of Duty, Kerbal Space Program 2 style

[Alexoff]

This will complicate the work of the game developers by orders of magnitude, so no other AI players

[vv3k70r]

8 hours ago, DAFATRONALDO2007 IN SPACE said:

Is it against the rules to launch a rocket at the opposition space agency's VAB because you hate them or you want them to lose.

What else fueled rocket since to even emerge?

Of course to avoid fingerprint on bombarding somenes VAB (and avoid any defence) it would be an asteroid. One is just heading to Kerbin in my career and is on right inclination for colision with Woomerang in 55days. Redirection could be a Kerbal way. So You say ney to use rockets - ok, but rocks from space are the solution. Specialy if You can detect a proper one and catch it in deep space for redirection and Your oponent cant.

Why call of duty? Let sey there be stocks - asteroid on proper inclination is a good reason to buy them cheap and redirect after aqusition. Nobody could predict such a turn of events^^

[shdwlrd]

Smh. I can't understand why some players have to have competition or wanted destruction to have fun with a game. 

[pandaman]

20 minutes ago, shdwlrd said:

Smh. I can't understand why some players have to have competition or wanted destruction to have fun with a game. 

Me too.  KSP is a rarity in that it has no 'end game' or 'victory state', other than what each player decides their goals are.  And even then the game isn't over, you just find another set of achievements to accomplish. 

Even the 'career' mode has no actual end.  It's just that the tech tree makes it feel like the goal is to complete it.

[vv3k70r]

On 12/5/2020 at 12:16 AM, shdwlrd said:

Smh. I can't understand why some players have to have competition or wanted destruction to have fun with a game. 

If You meet humans and they speak about coming in peace do not forget that they call a planet covered with water "Earth". Peace mean "give us all Your recources". We like it, we live it, we are not about to change. Lack of competition is a great fear so we create competitors and scarcity to feel better.

On 12/5/2020 at 12:45 AM, pandaman said:

KSP is a rarity in that it has no 'end game' or 'victory state'

My kid like it - there is no one else to blame for bad result. He planed, he designed, there is nothing random, if mission fail there is only one person to blame. He learn much about himself this way.

On 12/5/2020 at 12:45 AM, pandaman said:

Even the 'career' mode has no actual end.  It's just that the tech tree makes it feel like the goal is to complete it.

And worlds to visit. Tech tree is more like a way to visit them.

[pandaman]

6 minutes ago, vv3k70r said:

And worlds to visit. Tech tree is more like a way to visit them

I completely agree.

The thing is, IMO, because so many other games have a 'check list' of tasks, levels, goals, achievements, or whatever the game calls them, and once they are done you 'win', game over, start again from sctratch.

The KSP career mode/Tech Tree seems to me to give that same impression, that the object of the game is to gather science to complete the Tech Tree itself.

[DerkyJerkyWreaksHavoc]

On 12/4/2020 at 5:32 PM, vv3k70r said:

What else fueled rocket since to even emerge?

Of course to avoid fingerprint on bombarding somenes VAB (and avoid any defence) it would be an asteroid. One is just heading to Kerbin in my career and is on right inclination for colision with Woomerang in 55days. Redirection could be a Kerbal way. So You say ney to use rockets - ok, but rocks from space are the solution. Specialy if You can detect a proper one and catch it in deep space for redirection and Your oponent cant.

Why call of duty? Let sey there be stocks - asteroid on proper inclination is a good reason to buy them cheap and redirect after aqusition. Nobody could predict such a turn of events^^

No... Invasion!... V-2 rocket style

[vv3k70r]

8 hours ago, DAFATRONALDO2007 IN SPACE said:

No... Invasion!... V-2 rocket style

It is how we do that in Europe. Less than 10M corpses in XX century dosent count as military event to teach in schools. Less then 60k like in Vietnam nobody would remember in most old countries. Species that hunt for pleasure where other predators are best prey. It tells much about state of mind and possible solution for players if there is any oponent.

Giving a rocketry tools and the oponent is asking for obvious solution.

 

12 hours ago, pandaman said:

The KSP career mode/Tech Tree seems to me to give that same impression, that the object of the game is to gather science to complete the Tech Tree itself.

At the beggining - yes. But after Mun and Minmus You have everything important from stock. So this reason caese to exist. The other one appear - for first time You are sending poor Jeb out of the gravity well of habitable planet without any idea what is gonna happend and how to get back (later it is easy, but for first time it is an experience).

Edited December 7, 2020 by vv3k70r

[Minmus Taster]

well if they did that I'm gonna pray to GOD that they make slightly more unique names.

[LittleBitMore]

While some sort of space race would be really cool to play with, I'm pretty against the idea of a space race being forced. I do like it as an additional gamemode or setting, or as a standalone mod though.

What I'm against more though is using human names and nations as Kerbal nations or space agencies, or using any nations as space agencies. I'd prefer if the space agencies had no nationality so it would seem less like a race to see which nation has the better politics and more like a race to space.

So while a Space Race gamemode would be pretty cool, if it were left out mods would patch up the hole fairly well. Although I severely dislike how the base idea was essentially to plagiarize Earth's nations and add Kerbal politics, the idea of adding a space race to the game isn't a bad one and I agree it would be a ton of fun.

Of course the Space Race gamemode would likely be at least partially multiplayer, but adding AI would be cool too as i don't have a large number of friends who play KSP.