earlygame in ksp2

[Dientus]

Thinking about early game and the learning curve, it would be nice to experience and replicate what humans did during our reach for the stars. If this game mechanic is used, contracts like launching straight into the air to achieve orbit, learning you can't do that so switch to inclination of craft in flight, and launching rockets from planes, learning that landing the missions that return into the ocean is safest both for craft and Kerbalkind.

 

One thing I couldn't help but wonder, if ksp2 was going to get detailed enough to take into account substandard or incorrect materials used in the learning process that results in failures? On one hand it could be interesting, but I would see such a system getting tedious quickly.

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Dientus said:

One thing I couldn't help but wonder, if ksp2 was going to get detailed enough to take into account substandard or incorrect materials used in the learning process that results in failures? On one hand it could be interesting, but I would see such a system getting tedious quickly.

Nate has said that part failures aren't on the roadmap. Apart from that, I think that anything that makes the early game harder for new players is a bad idea, it's hard enough as it is.

[Dientus]

Missed that one. Makes sense too.

Guess I need to rewatch and reread all the official ksp2 info

[Guest]

4 minutes ago, Dientus said:

Missed that one. Makes sense too.

Guess I need to rewatch and reread all the official ksp2 info

Ha! I think you'll find some of us who are more obsessive about it will keep you informed, so there's no need unless you want to

[Jacke]

3 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

The career mode in general is... lacking. I'm really glad they're completely ditching it and redesigning an "adventure mode" from scratch. I don't know if sounding rockets or prop aircraft are the solution, but the early learning curve certainly needs smoothing.

This is bad.  A space exploration game needs a career mode.  Even a crappy one like KSP has at least can be modded a lot easier than trying to mod one from scratch.

 

3 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

My biggest early difficulty hurdles were RV and docking. The docking tutorial in particular was just plain bad and wrong – it featured a stationary target craft that you had to dock with, whereas it's way easier to have both craft controllable so that the target craft orients its docking port towards the approaching craft.

One active and one passive craft is standard.  And sometimes the target has to be passive, because there is no control.

A docking tutorial should start in the VAB, showing how to build a balanced orbital spacecraft.  Two mods provide essential improvements over stock, RCS Build Aid and Editor Extensions.  Balanced on-orbit spacecraft RCS is vital to avoid angle-linear coupling: when you turn the spacecraft, it also aquires a linear velocity, and when you thrust to move the spacecraft, it also turns.

Then there's the 3 phases of rendezvous and docking: Far Rendezvous to get the first close approach, Near Rendezvous when at close approach target the other vehicle, null the relative velocity (that shows on the navball), then thrust gently towards the target, and repeat that until close enough for the last step, Docking.

Starts with switching control to the active Docking Adaptor and selecting as the target the passive Docking Adaptor.  Here another two mods add essential tools, at least one of which is needed.  The simplest is Navball docking alignment indicator, which adds a simple marker on the navball to show where the passive Docking Adaptor is to align with it.  The complex is Docking Port Alignment Indicator, which provides a lot of info on spacecraft alignment to aid docking.

Then it's just practice.

 

3 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

I was also doing a lot of other stuff extremely inefficiently for a really long time because nobody pointed me at better ways – for example, Minmus trips were really expensive and complicated because I was correcting inclination rather than burning for the An/Dn and encountering there.  Never even mind interplanetary transfers.

Not necessarily.  Depends on how you burn to deal with the inclination issue.  Best perhaps is to launch the spacecraft into an orbit matching the inclination of Minmus, but that can be challenging to achieve.

 

3 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

The "how to reach orbit" tutorial also got me doing some hilariously inefficient burns, basically going up and sideways and sometimes even down to circularise.

Many of the launch tutorials were originally made for the old KSP aero which was crazy thick atmosphere yet minimal aerodynamic heating, which lead to some crazy launch profiles.  I found it easier to learn how real rockets do them, then adapt to KSP's smaller scale and quicker times to orbit.

 

3 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

Even with the relatively recent improvements like dV readouts, the game is still too opaque with information too. Landings for example are simply more enjoyable with KER's suicide burn indicator, I really don't see any reason that shouldn't be stock – if you like, associated with more advanced command pods or probe cores, but nevertheless. 

Good thing that Intercept have said that smoothing out this early learning curve is a primary objective, and they want to do it with better tutorials. Sounds about right to me. If the tutorials are bundled with missions that support them, it could work really well. 

The limited parts of rocket science and engineering modelled in KSP  are still rather complex.  Astrodynamics is complex.  I learned this years ago reading von Braun's _The Mars Project_ and other sources like that, so I had some background.  Still had a lot to learn to handle them in KSP.

I just hope they don't dumb down the game.  Having one physics-bending flaw like the 1/10 scale of KSP is bad enough.  There are better ways to do this.

[Guest]

24 minutes ago, Jacke said:

This is bad.  A space exploration game needs a career mode.  Even a crappy one like KSP has at least can be modded a lot easier than trying to mod one from scratch.

I would expect adventure mode to be, basically, a re-imagined and better version of career mode. Whether or not it'll feature contracts I don't know, but some form of gameplay driving progression and unlocking tech tree nodes for sure, and I hope it'll be a lot more coherent, richer, more varied, and generally more fun than KSP's random contracts.

26 minutes ago, Jacke said:

One active and one passive craft is standard.  And sometimes the target has to be passive, because there is no control.

Does anyone here routinely dock craft so that one of them is completely passive? At least I always orient the receiving craft's docking port towards the approaching craft, unless of course the receiving craft has no control (which is rare). A tutorial certainly ought to start with the easiest case, doubly so if it's the most common one – once you're comfortable docking two active craft, you'll probably be able to learn how to dock an active and a passive one on your own, without a tutorial.

29 minutes ago, Jacke said:

Not necessarily.  Depends on how you burn to deal with the inclination issue.  Best perhaps is to launch the spacecraft into an orbit matching the inclination of Minmus, but that can be challenging to achieve.

It's far easier to burn near the An or Dn, aiming for the opposite node, overshooting Minmus' orbit to meet it there at the right time. Works great any time Minmus is between about 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock with the target node at 12 o'clock. The overshoot barely consumes any dV, the only thing you lose is calendar time. It's also dead easy and you only make one burn (plus course correction if necessary).

32 minutes ago, Jacke said:

The limited parts of rocket science and engineering modelled in KSP  are still rather complex.  Astrodynamics is complex.  I learned this years ago reading von Braun's _The Mars Project_ and other sources like that, so I had some background.  Still had a lot to learn to handle them in KSP.

I just hope they don't dumb down the game.  Having one physics-bending flaw like the 1/10 scale of KSP is bad enough.  There are better ways to do this.

I don't think they'll dumb it down. Better tutorials and an early game that walks you through the basics are the way.

Also, I think KSP's system is just the right size -- it's small enough that you can get to orbit or do a Mun round trip with a reasonable learning curve and effort, but at the same time it accommodates some genuinely challenging stuff like Tylo or Eve. In my view keeping the same scale but then adding interstellar systems with new challenges, some of them presumably even harder than Eve or Tylo, is exactly the right way to go.

[K33N]

Yeah, the career mode haters are a vocal minority. Career mode is the main way the game is played and having a budget and goals is what keeps the game going for the majority of us. Having to watch $ specifically is what makes career mode the elite, skill based mode that simulates a real launch program.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Jacke said:

This is bad.  A space exploration game needs a career mode.  Even a crappy one like KSP has at least can be modded a lot easier than trying to mod one from scratch.

"Adventure" it's just something that doesn't make your mind go back to the specific rules of either KSP 1 Science or Career while being a lot less bland than "Progression mode".

They're not scrapping the idea of a career/progression, they're redesigning one from scratch and probably don't want to give player false expectations by calling it specifically Career or Science.

[Starhelperdude]

I hope the adventure mode will be nice and if not then I'll do it like in ksp1, just playing sandbox and roleplaying like there is an progression in sience and funds and stuff

[Spaceman.Spiff]

I honestly can’t tell what the early game is supposed to be. 
It seems like the only fuel for traditional rockets is Methalox, which doesn’t make sense from a “replicating history” standpoint. 

[Starhelperdude]

3 minutes ago, Spaceman.Spiff said:

I honestly can’t tell what the early game is supposed to be. 
It seems like the only fuel for traditional rockets is Methalox, which doesn’t make sense from a “replicating history” standpoint. 

though I will certainly play with mods that will add kero and hydro, for sure they will exist

maybe a sort of Restock/+ for ksp2

[Guest]

45 minutes ago, K33N said:

Yeah, the career mode haters are a vocal minority. Career mode is the main way the game is played and having a budget and goals is what keeps the game going for the majority of us. Having to watch $ specifically is what makes career mode the elite, skill based mode that simulates a real launch program.

It's a shame it's so poorly balanced and so sparse, though. Until recently I played exclusively Career and spent a lot of time trying to tune it so that it would be fun, but without much success. Dial up the rewards too much and it's basically fast-forward to Sandbox; dial them down, and you'll end up grinding satellite launches, tourist contracts, or sending space stations somewhere that doesn't interest you the least bit. There is a lot of room for improvement there, and I have perhaps unrealistically high hopes for what Intercept can do with it.

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, Brikoleur said:

There is a lot of room for improvement there, and I have perhaps unrealistically high hopes for what Intercept can do with it.

All the room for improvement is still there untouched since career was first implemented, KSP1 career is designed like a school project done at 10 PM the day before and then forgotten in a corner and never touched again.

[Jacke]

9 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

Does anyone here routinely dock craft so that one of them is completely passive? At least I always orient the receiving craft's docking port towards the approaching craft, unless of course the receiving craft has no control (which is rare). A tutorial certainly ought to start with the easiest case, doubly so if it's the most common one – once you're comfortable docking two active craft, you'll probably be able to learn how to dock an active and a passive one on your own, without a tutorial.

Yes, docking with a passive target is the norm.

Docking *is* the easiest part of Rendezvous and Docking--if you've build a properly RCS balanced active vehicle, use the right tools, and switch to controlling from the active Docking Port and targetted the passive Docking Port.  Then it's just maneuver to align,  slowly approach, and dock.

It's why I laid out the details in my post above about what is needed at each stage in ship design, mod inclusion, and actions.  That at least 2 mods are needed (one in the VAB to assist a balanced design, one in flight to help align) shows that base KSP is sorely lacking in proper components.   I've done balanced designs and docked so many times I can get by without the mods.  Even handle a slightly unbalanced spacecraft.  But a proper tutorial would go through all that.

It's just another area where KSP is lacking.

 

9 hours ago, Brikoleur said:

Also, I think KSP's system is just the right size -- it's small enough that you can get to orbit or do a Mun round trip with a reasonable learning curve and effort, but at the same time it accommodates some genuinely challenging stuff like Tylo or Eve. In my view keeping the same scale but then adding interstellar systems with new challenges, some of them presumably even harder than Eve or Tylo, is exactly the right way to go.

Making it 10 times as big and allow time to pass 10 times as fast would be virtually the same.  And it would allow a lot of other physics to be a lot simpler to make realistic in game.

[K^2]

20 minutes ago, Jacke said:

Yes, docking with a passive target is the norm.

Docking *is* the easiest part of Rendezvous and Docking

Unless your passive target is spinning, which, if it's truly passive, is actually quite likely.

KSP really makes it a lot easier for us. There's rarely a reason not to orient target capable of holding orientation to make docking even easier, and if the target is inert, it will load in without any angular velocity.

If they do proper warp of tumbling objects in KSP2, we might have some new challenges docking with a station or ship that lost power.

[Empiro]

Having some sort of career mode / guided challenge mode is important, but I agree that KSP1's career mode is severely lacking in many respects. I can also appreciate how it's tough to get right though. You want players to do interesting and new things while providing them with a challenge of some sort (not costing too much, not taking too much time, etc.). At the same time, you don't want to put players in a no-win state if they fail some of those challenges.

KSP1 sort of gets close with mods like KCT and Kerbalism, but even then, a lot of the gameplay is focused on grinding enough funds to upgrade your buildings rather than trying to come up with interesting rocket designs and challenging yourself with new types of missions.

[Jacke]

11 minutes ago, Empiro said:

KSP1 sort of gets close with mods like KCT and Kerbalism, but even then, a lot of the gameplay is focused on grinding enough funds to upgrade your buildings rather than trying to come up with interesting rocket designs and challenging yourself with new types of missions.

The problem with making a good career is balancing challenge and grind.  And also trying to engineer it too much.  I saw @FlowerChild burn himself out trying to keep a tight design with Better Than Starting Manned to all the changes from KSP 0.90 to 1.0.4.  And that was the end of BTSM.

I think career should give a lot of options.  KSP can have uncrewed and crewed rockets, aircraft, and even ships and submarines.  Give more options and have ways to prevent a career from getting stalled.  Have a good set of contracts that prove the cash to keep things going.  Make doing those contracts for the cash a bit fun too.

It's like the 3-ring circus.  Have a lot to do and several ways through and make it all fun.

One of the changes I'd suggest is instead of making tech tree progress based upon Science, make it based upon particular contracts to unlock the next tree nodes.  That's a big shift for KSP and hard to get right, but contracts are much more flexible tool for that.  However, it then begs the question: What to do with the Science?  It would be a hard sell for a mod to change KSP that way.  But it would be a better way to go for KSP 2.

Edited March 6, 2021 by Jacke

[KerikBalm]

On 3/3/2021 at 2:10 PM, Brikoleur said:

That would be cool. The main issue with them in KSP1 is that without some kind of stage recovery mod they get deleted as you fly the rocket to orbit, unless you design them specifically so that you have time to switch back and fly them home before that happens. It would be very nice indeed if KSP2 manages to lift this restriction. I would expect that at the very least multiplayer games will allow you to fly co-op missions to orbit where one of you is flying the rocket and the other one, the plane.

I really want that to be the case. Its also very useful when you want to scale up the system (because, mods are going to be a big thing in KSP2, or its going to fail) and want to go reusable.

Turbofan powered air launch to orbit designs simply don't work even at stock scale:

Spoiler

well, they work, but the carrier craft is always lost. The only way to make them owrk is to use at least whiplashes, preferably rapiers, and get into a mach 4+ zoom climb.... and really, you want rapiers so that you can add some LF+Ox to the carrier craft, and push it into closed cycle to boost the Apopasis even higher before release.

[mcwaffles2003]

On 3/3/2021 at 4:48 PM, Kernel Kraken said:

But, honestly, I mildly agree with you. In space, you don't need to deal with that stuff, and space is where the majority of the content and science points are. Why would I want to make it harder on myself and make it slower to progress through the tech tree and make more money? You can go through an entire career mode game without using any airplane parts. There's just no real incentive other than the passenger flight contracts, and after a while, all of those are space-based too. The only reason to be in atmosphere after your first few hours is during your ascent to orbit. I hope Intercept gives us some real reasons and benefits for in-atmosphere flight so I can convert even more people from airless-craft builders to aircraft artists.

Since resource transport will take up a larger portion of the game  in KSP 2 and automating supply lines to some level is confirmed, perhaps plane transport will be more economically viable than rocket transport on certain planets with O₂ atmospheres if people are able/willing to take advantage. That is assuming intra-planetary resource transfer will be a thing, but I can see having several mining outposts funneling resources to a centralized rocket based transport facility.