How will you play KSP?

[Klapaucius]

I've been thinking about this. Most of my time in KSP has been in sandbox mode. I have enjoyed challenges and creating weird craft with no limitations.

However, currently I am doing my first career playthrough after all these years. Since I started KSP just when Making History came out, I have been to all the planets and moons and played around in different environments using Mission Builder.

I have no regrets, but I wonder if I may spend the first year just in a career mode, allowing myself to discover things as they come. I realize that Nate Simpson has said some things will need to be unlocked regardless, but I am thinking of the whole game in totality here.

How do others plan to approach it?

[SciMan]

That's assuming there's even something remotely approaching what the current KSP 1 "career" setup is, with its (boring to me) contracts and time constraints and budgets.

For me KSP is a game about "What if" and "Why not".

Having budgets and contracts and the like was a good try at encouraging people to explore further, but for me it turned it into a game of "Why Bother" and "how are you going to pay for that". So for me Career is a game mode that I just try to ignore. Contract mods don't really help that much, since I always end up running into a funding problem.

Science is a much better game mode for me. There's some progression elements, but there's also no chains holding you down from going for that Jool-V mission just as soon as you've unlocked the first liquid fueled engine and fuel tank.

[Hyperspace Industries]

Sandbox, but I may restrict myself a bit in the beginning, especially stopping myself from using the torch drive until I have gone interstellar at least once, it just feels a bit too cheaty (and that’s coming from a guy who uses the cheat menu more often than not ) to use it from the beginning, but I always play sandbox, ‘cause I can do whatever I want, from basic planes to massive ships, the freedom sandbox gives is just awesome! And I’ve never gone interplanetary in a science mode playthrough, I always give up and go back to sandbox, because it is more fun.

[Fletch4]

if the multiplayer works well, i'll just probably blow up colonies w/ my friends. 

 

[BekfastDerp13]

I would do sandbox. I think it's nice to start out with everything. You can test out how to get to space and all of that stuff. Also I can make the fastest rocket possible without the restrictions of funds or limited tech.

[MechBFP]

Whatever the progression-based mode is.  I enjoy solving puzzles presented to me, not making my own and then solving those.

[Guest]

In KSP1 career I spend more time trying to fix it with dozen of mods than in actually playing it, that's why I've abandoned the idea of doing long career plays on KSP1. 

But KSP1 career problems are a consequence of the nature of its development, KSP1 is mainly a sandbox game with a career mode barely attached to it, in KSP2 seems to be the opposite, the whole definition of what a sandbox game will be is up in the air (How things will work with colony building, progression and craft building in colonies? Will it be more a cheat mode like Minecraft creative or just the same progression but with free stuff only on Kerbin?) while they seems to be putting a lot of thought in the progression system as the main game mode.

I at least trust them to make a better job than KSP1 career, so I see no point in using sandbox except for the initial testing).

[Pthigrivi]

Yeah Im pretty hopeful that the folks at Intercept have been thinking a lot about ksp1’s strengths and shortcomings and adventure mode is gonna be great. I like to experience games the way developers intend first so I’ll be diving right in. I think the core system of build/fly rockets is there. My biggest hope is that the core development and colony building mechanics are solid, even if the balance isn’t perfect. I think within the first six months or so with feedback and care and attention and updates that can be tweaked up. 

Edited September 10, 2021 by Pthigrivi

[intelliCom]

If there's a career mode (or equivalent), I'd prefer that.

It means I can get to know the new parts as they come along slowly, like watching a reboot of a favorite tv show of mine episode by episode instead of just skipping to the last episode. When playing KSP 1 career mode, it was actually the first time I went to Laythe, because of how the progression works, I worked my way outwards instead of barrelling toward Eeloo from the start.

Edited September 13, 2021 by intelliCom

[AtomicTech]

On 9/9/2021 at 6:40 AM, Hyperspace Industries said:

Sandbox, but I may restrict myself a bit in the beginning, especially stopping myself from using the torch drive until I have gone interstellar at least once, it just feels a bit too cheaty (and that’s coming from a guy who uses the cheat menu more often than not ) to use it from the beginning, but I always play sandbox, ‘cause I can do whatever I want, from basic planes to massive ships, the freedom sandbox gives is just awesome! And I’ve never gone interplanetary in a science mode playthrough, I always give up and go back to sandbox, because it is more fun.

Yep, I may or may not have used the cheats debug menu to do simple mun missions tha I could've easily done but wanted to save time.

[The Flying Kerbal]

I'm a career mode man.  I know some people don't like the contract system, but actually I don't have any problems with it.

Science mode is quite good too, it's sorta like NASA during the heights of the Space Race when Washington was shovelling money at them, and all they had to do was develop the technology to get a man on the Moon before Moscow.  However I just don't get the same buzz out of it as I do in career.

Sandbox I use to try things out for my career game, a bit like a simulator I suppose, but I don't enjoy it in anything even close to how much fun I get out of career.

So to answer your question, career for me, and probably not in a multi-player game.

Edited September 20, 2021 by The Flying Kerbal

[Tw1]

I'm hoping it's possible to set up a multiplayer server tbh.  If so, I'd end up focusing on setting up cool space bases. 

Edited September 13, 2021 by Tw1

[modus]

Same as ksp 1: very very slow.

[Greenfire32]

Sandbox.

Career Mode has always been to much of a chore for me to enjoy it.

[Athen]

I think that I'd also like to try playing it just in career mode. I have gotten into the habit of playing KSP in sandbox mode sine in the beginning i didn't know what i was doing and was too scared to attempt a career mode save, and now career mode is just a bit boring to me because I just want to get right away to the big rockets, even if the long term prospects of having a career mode save are really fun. In KSP 2 I'll try and have 1 save that I continually work on from the start that would be in career mode. I think that it will be a nice way to experience all the new things.

[TLTay]

Gotta be career for me. I like working around technological/logistical/funding constraints. I want to feel like I've earned it.

[SciMan]

For KSP 2, I'm willing to try the Career type mode if there is one, but for KSP 1 I found the most fun in Science mode.

This is mostly because the kinds of rockets I like to build have very expensive very high performance propulsion systems, and if I tried to pay my way towards launching one of those in a KSP 1 career I'd have to run so many tourism and rescue and other contracts that I'd just lose my mind from doing almost the same thing over and over 1000 times, which is what I like to call "IRL job simulator with a seemingly really interesting job" but when you just have to punch the buttons in mostly the same sequence every mission it gets boring real fast.

Plus, for me mistakes aren't something I look forward to, they're something that give me a very strong urge to just abandon whatever I attempted entirely (meaning I revert to VAB/launch a lot) rather than do something like send a rescue mission (which I never do). So I'll spend maybe an hour trying to stop a certain gigantic launch rocket from exploding, but then I'll just get fed up with the issue entirely and just cheat it into orbit since the math I have tells me the rocket should have been able to make it to orbit anyways and it's not my fault KSP's part attach nodes are all effectively on springs. If that part-welding mod for KSP 1 still worked, I'd love to use that and KJR quite a lot, because "just because I didn't put a strut between those two parts that are already attached by nodes doesn't mean that the joint there is supposed to be weak" I mean we're using smaller parts to emulate large contiguous parts, and large contiguous parts of rockets IRL don't just "fold in on themselves" when the engineering is sound and the execution of constructing the thing you engineered is done to a high level.

Kerbals can build rockets that get to Eeloo, the idea that they're bumbling idiots that can mysteriously produce rockets just breaks my immersion. Therefore, the idea that they would be incapable of welding multiple fuel tank barrel sections together to make one of the requisite length with enough fidelity in the welding process to generate the needed structural strength is simply beyond ludicrous to me.
If they can build rockets, they can build rockets. Rockets that explode when they aren't meant to explode aren't rockets, they're Unintended Explosive Objects.

Because of this, I would be just fine if KSP 2 entirely did away with simulating in-vessel structural loads. Like in Space Engineers, I believe that it should be left to the player to engineer things so that they look like they would survive the loads put on them. Simultaneously, I wish that the mass fractions and thrust-to-weight ratios were much more realistic in this game, along with the scale of the planets. Basically, I'd be fine with a Real-Scale Kerbal Solar System, provided that the rocket engines and fuel tanks performed similarly to real-world rocket hardware (for which specifications are readily available). This would make it much more obvious to players that while you need a lot of thrust to get off the ground, you don't need a lot of thrust to get to orbit, and getting to orbit should take roughly 15 minutes from liftoff to final circularization. It would also make it much more interesting to design vessels with limited Delta-V budgets, as right now with vanilla KSP 1 it's almost trivial to get to Eeloo with just chemical engines, whereas if you wanted to get to Pluto IRL and enter orbit there (not just doing a fast fly-by like New Horizons did a few years ago), you'd basically give the player a REALLY GOOD REASON to use that LV-N "Nerv", especially if it had realistic statistics!
Right now the LV-N "Nerv" has such a poor TWR that you could get out and push with the suit jetpack faster, and such a high heat production that I just basically ignore it.
That high heat production only further reduces TWR because you have to pack radiators now to keep it cool, and did I mention that those radiators are more parts on your vessel, which increases lag? Yet another reason to steer clear of the LV-N Nerv.
I remember the LV-N being a REALLY GOOD (not "overpowered good", because it was long and skinny which makes using it in a lander really hard, and it's horrible in an atmosphere, and the shroud stays on the engine instead of sticking to the decoupler) "in-space" engine, but that was long long ago before KSP was even on Steam, back before the LV-N was changed to only run on Liquid Fuel and not LFO. For a very long time, that change to run on only LF and not the LFO mix meant that you basically couldn't use 90% of the game's fuel tank parts with that engine because even with taking out the not-needed Oxidizer in those tanks, you still had to carry around the dry mass of that empty part of that tank. Even now, the Mk3 liquid fuel fuselage doesn't have as good of a mass ratio as your typical cylindrical LFO tank and it generates MUCH more drag in an atmosphere to boot, both of which really don't help things for a craft using those and the Nerv.
Even with those changes, the LV-N Nerv has always had this really arbitrary high heat production that makes it have a real problem with overheating, something LITERALLY NO OTHER ENGINE CURRENTLY IN KSP has. The Mainsail used to have a similar issue, but they got rid of that.
Really, the LV-N Nerv ought to be more rightly called the LV-N "Nerf", because they've nerfed it's performance so much that you basically have to go out of your way to find an excuse to use the thing, which is NOT the way it should be. It should be well suited to moving large payloads long distances, but don't try to prevent an ingenious player from using it on a lander if that player manages to make it fit, and they feel like making their already green Kerbals glow in the dark. Now that I think of it, the radiation danger the engine poses might be a MUCH BETTER way to "limit" the LV-N to use in "mothership" type vessels where you can make a long spine to keep the engines away from the habitation section.

[EnderKid2]

What heat production? I slapped a NERV on a medium-length Mk3 liquid fuel fuselage, and I could run out the entire tank without overheating. For any reasonable burn you'd make (a few km/s at most) your fuel tank provides a big enough heatsink to not even let the engine start glowing.

Fine, if I intentionally try to insulate it by sticking it on a stack of cubeoct struts to overheat it, it heats up much faster, but why would you ever do that.

Edited September 20, 2021 by EnderKid2

[AtomicTech]

I'll try to play adventure first but I won't be surprised if I get hit by the call of the Sandbox, it's a classic y'know!

[SciMan]

On 9/20/2021 at 3:42 PM, EnderKid2 said:

What heat production? I slapped a NERV on a medium-length Mk3 liquid fuel fuselage, and I could run out the entire tank without overheating. For any reasonable burn you'd make (a few km/s at most) your fuel tank provides a big enough heatsink to not even let the engine start glowing.

Fine, if I intentionally try to insulate it by sticking it on a stack of cubeoct struts to overheat it, it heats up much faster, but why would you ever do that.

It also overheats if you put 7 of them on a 3m engine plate, which is the only real way to make the pitiful TWR of the LV-N even remotely bearable (I don't have hours to spend just watching the delta-V on a manuver node tick down at likely less than 1/10 of a G). So you do need radiators for that. And all the modded NTRs have the same problem, for some reason.

These things are highly engineered. Do you really think they'd leave it in a state where it's possible to make the thing overheat at all? Engines used to have to produce heat for the engine bell glow graphics to show up, but that's handled by a different part module now. The Mainsail used to have this kind of overheating problem if you stuck it directly on a Jumbo-64 fuel tank, but now it doesn't. So why does the Nerv have this problem? Yes, it's a heat engine. All rocket engines are. It's not an OVERHEAT engine.

That little thing breaks my immersion so I just comment out that line in the config and I'm good to go.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, SciMan said:

These things are highly engineered. Do you really think they'd leave it in a state where it's possible to make the thing overheat at all? Engines used to have to produce heat for the engine bell glow graphics to show up, but that's handled by a different part module now. The Mainsail used to have this kind of overheating problem if you stuck it directly on a Jumbo-64 fuel tank, but now it doesn't. So why does the Nerv have this problem? Yes, it's a heat engine. All rocket engines are. It's not an OVERHEAT engine.

Engineered to be used with the right amount of radiators, if anything KSP2 needs to fix the heat system for the Nerv (and maybe make radiators and heat management a concern in other parts of the early KSP1-like gameplay) and use it as an introduction for when you'll need to manage heat with the more advanced engines and for when it will be one of the major design constraints for the huge interstellar ships (as we learned from the interview in the magical podcast of all answers that somehow almost nobody listened to)

[MechBFP]

8 minutes ago, Master39 said:

Engineered to be used with the right amount of radiators, if anything KSP2 needs to fix the heat system for the Nerv (and maybe make radiators and heat management a concern in other parts of the early KSP1-like gameplay) and use it as an introduction for when you'll need to manage heat with the more advanced engines and for when it will be one of the major design constraints for the huge interstellar ships (as we learned from the interview in the magical podcast of all answers that somehow almost nobody listened to)

Probably has something to do with it being a 1.5 hour long podcast. 

[Klapaucius]

13 hours ago, Master39 said:

Engineered to be used with the right amount of radiators, if anything KSP2 needs to fix the heat system for the Nerv (and maybe make radiators and heat management a concern in other parts of the early KSP1-like gameplay) and use it as an introduction for when you'll need to manage heat with the more advanced engines and for when it will be one of the major design constraints for the huge interstellar ships (as we learned from the interview in the magical podcast of all answers that somehow almost nobody listened to)

Thanks for the link. I had not heard of it and it was really good. I'm going to highlight that on its own thread.

[Guest]

27 minutes ago, Klapaucius said:

Thanks for the link. I had not heard of it and it was really good. I'm going to highlight that on its own thread.

It had its own thread when it was released. 

[Azimech]

I'll continue with creating stuff like helicopters, cars etc.

Because I've discovered space is amazingly boring. At least in KSP1.

The editor is the major selling point of KSP1. The whole space stuff ... nah.

KSP2 devs: think of another product parallel to this one. Look at how Automation is connected with Beam NG: Drive.

I'll be using multiplayer to race cars, helicopters and airplanes with the people who want to.

https://gfycat.com/kindsadbufeo-helicopter-chopper-kerbal-space-program

https://gfycat.com/skinnyknobbyhart

Edited September 27, 2021 by Azimech