different ways a career could work in ksp2

[jastrone]

well of course it is possible for there to be a similar system to ksp1 but not many people liked the career from that one so i only find it possible with it having a major rework. possible with a different source of income mainly. but most interestingly would be something copletely new and different for example some sort of reputation system maybe considering the mentioned boom events wich would give you rep and having a r.u.d would decrease it. I also think i heard that colonies would practically run themselves and suply lines too and this wouldnt really work if there was a money based system. an other way it could work if you just unlock parts for every boom event but i dont really think this would be that fun but it could work.  But now i just think it is important that sandbox isnt the only mode in ksp2 as i dont think that would work with colonies

 

If anyone has any other ideas on how a career mode could work please post them in the comments

[SciMan]

My biggest problem with the KSP 1 career mode is that I always run out of money when I want to launch big missions (aka crewed missions that include the ability to return without much issue) to other planets. I don't want to have to grind missions to make money, when I am forced to fly all of those missions manually the whole way. That takes too much time for not enough reward for me, even with the penalties turned all the way down and the rewards turned all the way up.
If I have to do the same thing more than 5 times, I get bored of it, because I'm playing a game, I'm not getting paid to do a job.

So, instead of that system that obviously doesn't work, I propose this: We start with the space agency having a basic income rate, and by doing missions successfully we can increase that rate to handle bigger and more ambitious missions. If tourism and/or rescue contracts are in, we should be able to AUTOMATE them so that we don't have to pay attention to them while we do something we're ACTUALLY interested in doing, like a mission to another planet. I absolutely hate the fact that I have to work by playing out 100's of pitifully-paying contracts JUST to be able to launch something like a Jool-V mission (and I mean the "menial" kind of work, not the "rewarding" kind of work, aka the kind of work that makes you hate your boss). So being able to demonstrate a capability and then being paid over time for keeping that capability on-line makes sense. You don't need to clutter up my tracking station with the satellites that have launched on my rockets via this automation either. Just put it in a stats panel (or a spreadsheet) and don't even simulate it in the physics because I don't really care about it, the point of KSP 2 is to build interplanetary and interstellar colonies using near-future propulsion concepts on rockets, it's not really about being the equivalent of a "truck driver but the truck is a rocket", which is what KSP 1 career feels like.

So, like I said: Start with an income rate per month, and the more rockets you design that can carry high amounts of payload to orbit the more you'll get paid per month.

In a similar way, you can design satellites, or landers, or any kind of rocket-propelled thing, and get paid for designing it and keeping some of them in stock ready to get sent up on a rocket that anyone else could design.

And part of the multiplayer could involve sharing designs for fun and (in game, never IRL) profit! Say you design a lifter that can take 100 tons to a 125x125km orbit, you could upload that design and you'd earn a certain amount of funding (IP Royalties!) every time someone else uses it to launch one of their payloads (that is every time the game detects that the "payload" part has been detached from the rocket itself, or however else you want to define the rocket has been "used" without counting the times that the player reverts to VAB or launch pad).

Similar for satellites and landers and other rocket propelled things, you'd upload the design and you'd earn a little bit of funding every time someone else uses your design in their game.

The other space agencies in your own game would also be using the designs you make, however your tracking station would not see those flights unless a contract came up for something like satellite servicing, repair, de-orbit, or adding on to a station or base they have already put in orbit or landed on another planet or moon, and they'd only show up if you accepted the contract and didn't have something that could do it already (meaning the first flight which demonstrates the capability to the game is also a contracted money earning flight, which is a good way to make a little more money).

 

Basically I don't want to have to become American SpaceLines (millions of tourism/rescue contracts) in order to master this and other solar systems.

 

Or they could skip all that and just get rid of the concept of money entirely, seeing as once you've started mining asteroids and colonizing other planets the concept of "scarcity" tends to make itself... well... scarce. (have you seen what even a rather small average high-metallic content asteroid would do to the platinum-group metals markets? It would utterly crash them, you'd be able to get Iridium for about the cost of Gold! (that's a lot less than what it's worth right now btw)).

[jastrone]

4 minutes ago, SciMan said:

My biggest problem with the KSP 1 career mode is that I always run out of money when I want to launch big missions (aka crewed missions that include the ability to return without much issue) to other planets. I don't want to have to grind missions to make money, when I am forced to fly all of those missions manually the whole way. That takes too much time for not enough reward for me, even with the penalties turned all the way down and the rewards turned all the way up.
If I have to do the same thing more than 5 times, I get bored of it, because I'm playing a game, I'm not getting paid to do a job.

So, instead of that system that obviously doesn't work, I propose this: We start with the space agency having a basic income rate, and by doing missions successfully we can increase that rate to handle bigger and more ambitious missions. If tourism and/or rescue contracts are in, we should be able to AUTOMATE them so that we don't have to pay attention to them while we do something we're ACTUALLY interested in doing, like a mission to another planet. I absolutely hate the fact that I have to work by playing out 100's of pitifully-paying contracts JUST to be able to launch something like a Jool-V mission (and I mean the "menial" kind of work, not the "rewarding" kind of work, aka the kind of work that makes you hate your boss). So being able to demonstrate a capability and then being paid over time for keeping that capability on-line makes sense. You don't need to clutter up my tracking station with the satellites that have launched on my rockets via this automation either. Just put it in a stats panel (or a spreadsheet) and don't even simulate it in the physics because I don't really care about it, the point of KSP 2 is to build interplanetary and interstellar colonies using near-future propulsion concepts on rockets, it's not really about being the equivalent of a "truck driver but the truck is a rocket", which is what KSP 1 career feels like.

So, like I said: Start with an income rate per month, and the more rockets you design that can carry high amounts of payload to orbit the more you'll get paid per month.

In a similar way, you can design satellites, or landers, or any kind of rocket-propelled thing, and get paid for designing it and keeping some of them in stock ready to get sent up on a rocket that anyone else could design.

And part of the multiplayer could involve sharing designs for fun and (in game, never IRL) profit! Say you design a lifter that can take 100 tons to a 125x125km orbit, you could upload that design and you'd earn a certain amount of funding (IP Royalties!) every time someone else uses it to launch one of their payloads (that is every time the game detects that the "payload" part has been detached from the rocket itself, or however else you want to define the rocket has been "used" without counting the times that the player reverts to VAB or launch pad).

Similar for satellites and landers and other rocket propelled things, you'd upload the design and you'd earn a little bit of funding every time someone else uses your design in their game.

The other space agencies in your own game would also be using the designs you make, however your tracking station would not see those flights unless a contract came up for something like satellite servicing, repair, de-orbit, or adding on to a station or base they have already put in orbit or landed on another planet or moon, and they'd only show up if you accepted the contract and didn't have something that could do it already (meaning the first flight which demonstrates the capability to the game is also a contracted money earning flight, which is a good way to make a little more money).

 

Basically I don't want to have to become American SpaceLines (millions of tourism/rescue contracts) in order to master this and other solar systems.

 

Or they could skip all that and just get rid of the concept of money entirely, seeing as once you've started mining asteroids and colonizing other planets the concept of "scarcity" tends to make itself... well... scarce. (have you seen what even a rather small average high-metallic content asteroid would do to the platinum-group metals markets? It would utterly crash them, you'd be able to get Iridium for about the cost of Gold! (that's a lot less than what it's worth right now btw)).

you used about 750 words that is a whole essay right there how long did this take? anyways i like the idea of an income. considering that they have automated transport lines i think it is a bit likely that we will see something like this. but an early sorce of money before colonies would be sattelites right? because they brodcast tv and have gps and is probably the most profitable space related thing right now probably? after that probably simple space tourism to orbit and probably later to celestial bodies and last resource extraction. and if the drilling parts are given in late game i think astroids could be pretty fair if they are nerfed a lot from real life. but it would make sense in kerbal since they dont seem to value materials that much considering fuel prices in the original game. but they rather value work since an engine takes longer to build and is more expensive

[WelshSteW]

On 9/22/2021 at 6:19 PM, SciMan said:

... If tourism and/or rescue contracts are in, we should be able to AUTOMATE them so that we don't have to pay attention to them while we do something we're ACTUALLY interested in doing, like a mission to another planet...

 

I like this, but would add that maybe we can automate them after having have done them manually? That way we'd have to build the vessel, and how efficiently we manage to complete the contract would decide how much income we would get from this type of contract. Later, if we've unlocked better engines, we could manually complete another of this type of contract to improve the return.

This type of thing could be used for all repeatable contracts.

 

This is getting close to the approach used by a mod or two currently. LGG looks after them - Kerbal Space Transport System, and Routine Mission Manager.

Edited September 24, 2021 by WelshSteW

[StopIteration]

Of course the problem with a base income (at least with no limits on funds - though in some ways a fund limit might make it worse) is you have no reason not to timewarp for 1000 years or so at the start of the game and end up with more funds than you could ever use.

That sort of cheese is probably somewhat inevitable with colonies, since they would presumably require passive ISRU gathering of resources rather than money to build things, but at least with colonies, you'd probably need a pretty well-developed colony in order to do that (since you'd need to be gathering a large variety of resources, would need enough storage space to store the resources, and also any life-support mechanic would force your colony to be fully self-sufficient in order to timewarp a lot).

One possible alternative to tourist missions would be to have colonists who pay rent to live on off-world colonies and space stations.  They'd pay a premium for new and exciting (read inhospitable) destinations, and they might eventually get bored and want to leave.  They could also occasionally make demands for you to improve the colony in some way.  And of course, like tourists, they don't work for you.  This would provide you with a passive income, but would be somewhat safe from excessive timewarp cheesing.

But I do agree that money should be somewhat de-emphasized in KSP 2.  Since you wouldn't use money to build things at your colonies, you would eventually transition over to building everything with the resources you produce, rather than funds.  In the late game, your colonies would passively produce all the resources you could ever need, and so long as all your colonies are self-sufficient, you can go ahead and timewarp-scum for those resources to your heart's content, you've earned it.  In the early game, you'd be building most of your stuff on Kerbin using funds, which would be hard to come by, maybe even more so than in KSP 1.  I think the way it should work is that even on Kerbin, you build things with resources rather than funds, but on Kerbin you have the option to buy certain resources that you don't have using funds (though not the other way around - no selling resources like in KSP 1).

Edited September 24, 2021 by StopIteration

[t_v]

I think that we might be able to get a hint from the statement that when supply missions are scarce, kerbals don't die but are less productive in colonies, and I take this to mean that inactivity will result in less production everywhere, to avoid this timewarp thing. for example, you could get income from delivering a payload to LKO but that income would decrease to a trickle over time, as if customers are turning to more innovative agencies, until you make a more efficient mission to attract business. This way you have an incentive to try the same thing with much better tech and avoid timewarping ludicrously far. Same with colonies, if there are no supply missions coming from Kerbin, which happens when you start to lose income, your colonies slowly slow down their production rates until you secure new income and therefore more snacks and moral support to the colonies. At the point where it becomes hard to make more efficient missions, you are already at endgame, at which point you can sell resources for big profit.

[K^2]

On 9/22/2021 at 10:19 AM, SciMan said:

If I have to do the same thing more than 5 times, I get bored of it, because I'm playing a game, I'm not getting paid to do a job.

I agree, but to me, this suggests that there is more than one way to solve the problem. Yes, we could have the contract system replaced with something entirely different, but I think the core concept is fine. It's just the fact that it gets repetitive, because every contract is such a basic construct. "Position satellite in orbit." "Rescue Kerbal from orbit/location." "Test part." "Collect data." All of these are fine to do once or twice, but then it turns into a grind and not even a fun one.

A relatively simple fix to this would be to link a bunch of these objectives together into a mission. What if instead the contract is to rescue the stranded Kerbal, deliver them to their ship in orbit, get some parts to that ship to fix it, take the ship to a destination, land it there, perform measurements, then bring the kerbal and collected science back. Same basic parts, but now you have a bit of a narrative to keep you invested, and the number of ways this can all be combined is a lot higher. Plus, provided that each step has its own rewards in credits and reputation, by the time you are finished the set, you are set for a while. And even if you have to run multiples of these throughout the game, because of the number of permutations, it can always be at least somewhat fresh. The generator for missions like this can be pretty simple - you really just need to make sure that whatever combo that's being generated is within constraints of player's current technical level and that the player is compensated appropriately for every step. And because this style heavily rewards combining resource investment for multiple steps, like carrying an engineer on your rescue ship so that you can perform the repairs without separate launch, if you spend a bit more time solving the problem creatively, you actually get significantly higher payout.

[Pthigrivi]

Apropos, @Timmon26 did a pretty sick diagram of how colony economics could work and described it here:

[SciMan]

I like the idea of that resource diagram, but I think there should be a step between "mining vessels" and "metal/volatiles/uranium/He3", because it's not like you can just make rocket parts out of bauxite. You have to refine it into Aluminum first. Same goes for iron, you have to smelt iron ore before you can make parts out of iron. There are nuclear reactors that can run on raw chemically-separated Uranium (one happened by accident in the Earth's crust long ago), but most reactors that we use today for power production (and all NTRs) would need a further Enrichment step to turn it into Enriched uranium before it's really usable.
Even ice needs "some" processing before you can directly use it in life support, because who knows what kind of toxic or otherwise problematic chemicals might be in that ice even if it is mostly water ice. And there's other kinds of ices too, IRL you can find dry ice (solid CO2) on Mars at the poles year-round if you go far enough north/south, so you'd need to have some form of refinery or other processing facility even for just "generic ice" to get the "useful" parts out of it. Not to mention that ice as you find it IRL is usually not very clean, you'd need to melt it to let the dirt and other particles settle out of it at the very least.

[Pthigrivi]

@SciMan It's true, and we talked a bit about that. I won't speak for Timmon but I think he's right about the overall scale of complexity that could work. I figure by now Intercept has a pretty strong idea what they want to do so its just us theorizing, but in general my feeling is you want colony management to be as simple as it can possibly be and still allow for creative strategies. Most intermediate steps can be abstracted and condensed into the various refineries. To start I agree with him that you'd want at least 3-4 basic mineable resources. If you only have 2 resources from which you produce everything one of two things happens: either they overlap and there are places where you can build a colony and have everything without effort, or they don't overlap and there's no place thats particularly better to build than any other. 3-4 creates a more dynamic landscape where there are places where a couple of these resources overlap but you still need to expand and build new outposts and supply lines to go to the next level. In KSP1 there's just Ore and you have option load it up raw or process it on site. In reality it would almost always make sense to start to process it very close to where it was being harvested to cut down on transport mass. We'll see what intercept has in mind but I think you could just have drills and pre-processors that work together for each basic resource. After that the question is how many intermediate steps are absolutely necessary. In Timmon's diagram they go on to further processing in refineries to get different fuels, and workshops and reactors to make parts and energy. You could have an intermediate step with smelters and uranium enrichment facilities--but do you need to? For me realism isn't enough. Players should only be bothered with intermediate steps if they create a gameplay opportunity like being able to use one resource for two different end-uses or to streamline transportation in supply lines. 

Edited September 29, 2021 by Pthigrivi

[SciMan]

Well there's plenty of uses for something like Depleted Uranium IRL, and not just in weapons. Not just ballast masses either, it's an important part of nuclear weapons (and therefore Orion drive pulse units). Plus you can still get the stuff to undergo fission, just because it's fissile doesn't mean you can't split the atom. All you need to do is just shoot a beam of antiprotons at a small sphere of depleted uranium, which will make a small part of it undergo fission, including several FAST neutrons from each atom of U-238 which will induce fission in the rest of the mass of depleted uranium.
Then you can direct that whole blast away from a spacecraft using a magnetic field, and since those fission products are sure to be quite highly charged that magnetic field will be VERY effective.

That makes for another interesting type of propulsion system, the Antimatter-Catalyzed Fission drive (represented in Nertea's "Far Future Technologies" mod, but it uses a different trigger system)
It's basically an Orion drive, but smaller, and at no point do you assemble anything that could be "simply" taken out of the drive's systems and repurposed as a weapon, unlike Orion drive pulse units which are by definition devices designed to create a nuclear and in the best case thermonuclear detonation (after all, antimatter is blasted hard stuff to contain, not to mention OBTAIN in the first place, but that's another advantage of the ACF drive, you don't need a whole lot of antimatter to get a whole lot of high ISP thrust out of it).

The point I'm trying to make, is that maybe we don't need steps where one resource is turned into one other resource, but there are LOTS of interesting things we could do where we either take one resource and split it into multiple resources, or take multiple resources and combine them into one or more new resources.

For instance, you might have a processor that takes in Deuterium and He3, and spits out fusion engine fuel pellets (Inertial Confinement Fusion fuel, or part of Antimatter-Catalyzed Micro-Fusion drive fuel).

However, I do think that there should be a Mass Driver type engine, which would ideally be able to run off of literally any solid resource as propellant, along with a hefty supply of electricity (not liquids or gases, those would go thru more conventional engines either NTR or Electric type thrusters).
It would be a high-thrust low ISP drive system (EDIT: Well, "Low ISP" compared to your more typical ion engines at least, but for sure it would have higher thrust) best used for moving around asteroids (so if you're interested in the metal content of an asteroid, you'd run the mass driver off of Regolith and not Metal Ore, but either would be available as propellant should you run out of one or the other).

Honestly you could have it just be FuelOres, MetalOres, and Regolith, and make a pretty good system if you had a bunch of converters. There is a balance to be struck between how many converters you have and how many types of ore you have. Something like MKS is entirely overkill. Realistic, yes, but over-complicated for something being sold as a game.

EDIT: Another potential use for mass drivers would be to send resources either suborbitally around a planet, or up to orbit, or between planets. Non-rocket space launch technologies are COOL AND INTERESTING both from a gameplay and a conceptual point of view. Yes, I know this is a game about rockets, but if you could get rid of the entirety of the first stage of your rocket I'm sure you would at least give it a try or something. It would be entirely fine with me if you still needed a regular rocket to launch things that aren't designed to survive high G-forces, and even with these systems if we don't put in a full-on geostationary space elevator then we'd still need SOME rocket propulsion to get all the way into a stable orbit.

Edited September 30, 2021 by SciMan

[Tw1]

If they properly realise the balance between rewards for active play, and passive rewards/costs per time, then I'll be happy.  There was no downsides or benefits when it came to timewarping, which was a bit of a loss if you ask me.
 
The shallow, quest style gameplay that characterised KSP1's carrier was the biggest problem for me. Life support, passive experiments, funding based on what sort of reputation or standing you've got, crew salaries, that sort of thing.
Perhaps a simple budget spreadsheet to help us keep track of that aspect.

The absence of this sort of thing was what stopped KSP1 feeling like a space program, rather than just an advanced rocket launching sim. 

It needs to feel like I'm commanding a space program. Make if feel authentic, not like I'm being handed a list of randomish tasks to do. Let tasks arise naturally from what I encounter in game, not imposed by a list. 
That was the fundamental problem with contracts and the clicky science.  I'm being told what to do, rather than given the info I need to work it out for myself.

KSP has 5 levels of things the player gets to do.

1. Program direction,
2. Engineering,
3. mission planning,
4. executing the space travel,
5. close up exploration.

I long felt it was lacking in the first, and only in the later updates did much interesting about the last. Do to the third well often relied on external tools,

IF they can give us proper management and time based mechanics, and fully flesh out each of those 5 levels, I will be very happy. 

Edited September 30, 2021 by Tw1

[rextable]

I luuuve the intelligent discussion going on here! However I can't help but notice many of the points made relate more to gameplay rather than the original topic - how career mode could work in KSP2. So in the interest of keeping things focused I shall summarise my thoughts. If I sound terse or antagonistic, that is not my intention - I'm just keeping things brief. So here goes.

(1) I favor the design-your-own-missions-and-achieve-milestones model of progression. 

(2) Money and prestige  are completely extraneous, arbitrary and unnecessary means of progression in a game predicated on learning about the laws of physics, orbital mechanics, survival in space and scientific research. If I want to learn about spreadsheets I'll play Horse Economy III 

 

The end 

Edited October 1, 2021 by rextable
42!!!

[shdwlrd]

11 hours ago, rextable said:

If I want to learn about spreadsheets I'll play Horse Economy III 

Ok, I snorted when I first read this. Intercept please let us break out of our pens and allow us to become moguls of our kerbin population without learning spreadsheets of data. 

An exploration and discovery based progression is the way I would prefer how to unlock new tech. It would be more in the original flavor of KSP before the career and science modes were added. The wonder of self exploration and the awe of finding something that peeked your interest. Granted the veteran KSP players may get bored with that type of game play but it seems that Intercept is changing things just enough get that wonder and awe back.

 

[jastrone]

16 hours ago, rextable said:

unnecessary means of progression in a game predicated on learning about the laws of physics, orbital mechanics, survival in space and scientific research.

well it is a game too. it has to be fun. that is what I think is unique to ksp compared to other similar games. and without financial limitations there is less reward to going somewhere

[rextable]

2 hours ago, jastrone said:

well it is a game too. it has to be fun. that is what I think is unique to ksp compared to other similar games. and without financial limitations there is less reward to going somewhere

I totally agree - KSP is a game, not a hardcore simulator. My Horse Economy III gag was my derpy way of making that point. KSP1 is difficult (and thus entertaining) enough without the limiting factor of cashmoneyz in the bonk account.  In real life there is nothing but pigeons in my bonk account - which is definitely preventing me from going to space in the fashion I would prefer .  In the KSP1 career mode, the money and prestige mechanics always stifled my creativity and made playing the game into a chore, so I only ever play in science mode. Getting that sweet sweet science is challenge enough for me personally.

 

7 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

Ok, I snorted when I first read this. Intercept please let us break out of our pens and allow us to become moguls of our kerbin population without learning spreadsheets of data. 

An exploration and discovery based progression is the way I would prefer how to unlock new tech. It would be more in the original flavor of KSP before the career and science modes were added. The wonder of self exploration and the awe of finding something that peeked your interest. Granted the veteran KSP players may get bored with that type of game play but it seems that Intercept is changing things just enough get that wonder and awe back.

 

Agreed. To elaborate on what you've said: exploration and discovery as a primary means of progression is not only in the spirit of the original game, but also in the spirit of human scientific endeavor in general.

[SciMan]

I fully agree that you should never have a problem of "I need to launch 20 of these rockets to do what I want but I only have enough money to launch 1 or 2 of them".

However, I don't think money should completely go away.

Instead, money should be the driving factor behind why you're building colonies in the first place.

People generally don't do what they consider "work" for free (if you love your job, you're not working, because "to work" has a connotation of "toil" or "i'd rather be doing something else, but I need the money".

So instead of the career being about "i can't launch these things because XYZ", let it be about "I can launch these things if I do XYZ first" where XYZ in this case is setting up a colony either on or in orbit of another planet or moon.
Basically, you'd only have to pay "Kerbin money" to launch things from Kerbin itself.
That means that if you set up a Minmus VAB and a bunch of outposts on both Minmus and the Mun, you might still have to send some "taxes" type money back (which you could earn by sending resources from your outposts back to Kerbin, !automatically!), but even without that line of income it would still be VASTLY cheaper than paying for the identical craft to be launched from Kerbin, and I did say "identical" craft so that means before the part where you change your design to account for the fact that getting into orbit of Minmus is pretty much trivial (what, 350-odd m/s delta-V?). In other words, that's before the part where you remove the heavy "get it to LKO" stages of the rocket and instead add a much much smaller, simpler, and cheaper "get it to low Minmus orbit" stage.

However, to make it more challenging and not just a "I won the game after I colonized Minmus" type game, it would have to be arranged so that you would never be able to get all the resources you need on JUST minmus, or JUST the Mun, even to launch basic chemical rockets. You'd need to have colonies and outposts on both (and maybe some outposts on Kerbin too!), just to launch "regular, KSP 1 type" rockets from Minmus.
Additionally, to encourage, nay to REQUIRE players to explore and colonize the other planets and moons outside Kerbin's sphere of influence, building some types of high-tier parts would require resources you can't even find on Kerbin, the Mun, or Minmus except perhaps in the quantities you need to build one or two rather small high-tech parts per 100 days, as a taste of things to come, and as something to verify your resource scanners that are aiming at other planets are actually capable of sensing the things you need them to sense.

That would solve the two problems I have with KSP 1 career, the "not enough money" issue, and the other issue which persists even in KSP 1 Science mode, which is that you don't technically need to explore anywhere other than the Mun and Minmus to get enough science to unlock the entire tech tree, and that 2nd issue combined with the hassle of interplanetary rockets seemingly always having pitiful TWR meaning burns take "on the order of 10 minutes" has in the past hung up all pretense of me exploring the other planets in the solar system like I keep telling myself I want to do but then finding myself not having fun doing so I stop.
The whole point of that last run-on sentence was that I don't want to stop doing something in this game because I am not having fun doing it, I want to be FORCED to stop because there's nothing left TO do (a problem which mods will surely be able to solve as long as there exists a mod that allows the introduction of other solar systems to the game).

[shdwlrd]

@SciManWhy must KSP require funds to do anything? It really isn't necessary when you use an exploration and discovery based progression. At that point funds turn into an unnecessary layer of complexity that can cause a fail point. One thing Nate has said about the adventure mode is that there won't be any failure points built-in. That means the only failures you will see are based on the players skills and engineering, not whether they can make enough funds to continue.

Also, in KSP there is no winning state nor losing state. There's only seeing and doing until you either seen it all or get bored. 

[jastrone]

31 minutes ago, shdwlrd said:

Why must KSP require funds to do anything?

to limit the player a bit. that is why in the original is for a new player  much easier to start with science or career mode rather than sandbox because there is a clear goal. there is a much better learning curve in those modes compared to sandbox. the first time i tried to reach orbit or go to the moon in ksp 1 i used a really overpowered rocket. in career i would do that about the same time i had the minimum to do that but i had a much more easily controllable rocket. the limit of what you can do pushes you in the right direction. still today when i play ksp I always build a rocket with way to much delta v and thus it takes long time to turn and do burns. 

[shdwlrd]

1 hour ago, jastrone said:

to limit the player a bit.

Can't that be done by having only certain parts available and unlocking parts as you reach certain milestones? Remember, the land based VABs will have very limiting constraints for size and mass for the rockets. (No more 400 million tonne launch vehicles built on the planets surface.)

Funds aren't the only way to limit the player and keep them from getting in over their heads until they are ready. Funds to me seems just something to brag about and force an early end of a game progression.

I'm going to repeat again, Nate doesn't want failures in the progression that isn't tied to the players skill and engineering. So funds will have to go away or be just something in the background that has no bearing on the actual progression of the game.

[jastrone]

13 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

force an early end of a game progression

yhea, thats good. career mode was what took me to the mun. probably still wouldnt have today if it wasnt for career mode. the reason is just not there in sandbox

[shdwlrd]

6 hours ago, jastrone said:

yhea, thats good. career mode was what took me to the mun. probably still wouldnt have today if it wasnt for career mode. the reason is just not there in sandbox

No, that's bad. That forces players to start grinding something before they can continue. It also can cause a failure point for the progression for the very early game. Which is against what Intercept wants for KSP2.

I understand that some players need goals to push farther in a game. There nothing wrong with that. In most games you have a chance to recover before you truly fail. If you do fail; you just go back to an earlier save or checkpoint, or you continue without the materials you had at that point in time. I know that there are perma-death games out there. I own a few, and I stopped playing them because of having to restart after a mistake was demoralizing and frustrating.

KSP can be frustrating from your very first launch and the failure rate can be high in the beginning or when you're trying something new. The funds made it impossible to continue when you had more than a couple failures in the early game. It made the game very unforgiving when you're trying to learn it.

We all know KSP isn't the easiest of games. So why make it impossible for the new players to reach the next milestone because they made a mistake and when bankrupt within the first few days of playing. Why make it so a string of bad missions will end their play through and force them to restart. That's just adding unnecessary frustration to a game that can be very frustrating to begin with.

Funds shouldn't be added to KSP2. If they are, funds shouldn't be apart of the main progression of the game.

[jastrone]

10 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

The funds made it impossible to continue when you had more than a couple failures in the early game

revert flight? 

[shdwlrd]

8 hours ago, jastrone said:

revert flight? 

Doesn't help when you have a string of failures or have contracts you can't complete. (Rescue contracts when you only have the size1 pod and SRBs... really?!) 

Also, do we know if KSP2 will have a revert function? I keep saying, you can't compare functions of KSP2 to KSP1. It's going to be different from what we expect. The only thing I'm expecting from KSP2 that is the same as KSP1 is the physics and orbital mechanics are the same, nothing else.

Edited October 4, 2021 by shdwlrd

[jastrone]

49 minutes ago, shdwlrd said:

Also, do we know if KSP2 will have a revert function? I keep saying, you can't compare functions of KSP2 to KSP1. It's going to be different from what we expect. The only thing I'm expecting from KSP2 that is the same as KSP1 is the physics and orbital mechanics are the same, nothing else.

that is a core feature. and it isnt just a core feature for ksp it is for every game in the genre. and have you seen the vab ui pretty much the same as ksp1. it is still a sequell it will add features not replace them