Will there be a tech tree fix? Or a tech tree customization?

[BigStar Aerospace]

Hello everyone! This will be the first thread I've created in months, so please don't mind my rustiness!

I love the first KSP! But the thing is, I only love Sandbox mode specifically, and for what I see as good reason too. KSP's tech tree is a mess, it feels like it was jumbled together as quick as possible and as if there was minimal effort put into it, no offense to anyone that may have developed the tree.

First of all, putting rocketry flight before aerodynamic flight with airplanes and drones and whatnot is just wrong, I am not talking from a historical perspective, but from a piloting perspective, nearly every astronaut ever has piloted a plane before having flown in a rocket powered vehicle on the way to space.

Second of all, crewed rocketry flight comes long before remotely controlled flight, this is wrong in many ways, as someone is looking to go into college for aerospace engineering as soon as I graduate high school, this is reckless! As we have seen, real rockets have to go through rigorous testing procedures alongside government approval before getting to fly. I think that in KSP 2, we should get probes and launch abort systems early on. (The hardcore players need more launch abort systems for the other sizes of capsules, I mean, we can get creative with the parts we have now, but it still takes up a large part count)

Third of all, fairings are fairly far, which means that you have to launch satellites bare against the atmosphere or you have to make a weird looking satellite that doesn't even look like one that would be useful.

This is not to complain, it is for suggestion, if anybody would like to share their opinions, I would love to hear them, the tech tree is what makes career and science mode challenging, so why not improve it to be better accustomed to the people that want the challenge. I do think though, that it should be something you select in the settings menu, (ex: Legacy Tech Tree or Improved Tech Tree) those settings would make it so people could continue the play style they had in the first game, or have a new play style in the new game.

Edit: Thanks for all the comments everyone!

Edited February 7, 2022 by BigStar Aerospace

[The Aziz]

Let's start with the fact that we don't even know if the tech tree will exist. I mean it probably will, you got to get new parts somehow (by making scientific research, perhaps?), but not in current form. Don't think of KSP2 with KSP1 in mind.

[shdwlrd]

39 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Don't think of KSP2 with KSP1 in mind.

I second this. The devs know the flaws in KSP1 because they are fans. Intercept won't repeat the mistakes that Squad made. (I really hope my assumption doesn't make me a donkey.)

[BigStar Aerospace]

I agree, I hope that they make the game better for console players too because we often don't have the money to buy a PC (or at least I don't), so hopefully we get the updates just as soon as PC players, a horrible company like Bethesda did it with the Fallout series, so if trash programmers like the lot of them can do it, I am pretty sure a dev team of amazing devs from Intercept can do  better.

[Pthigrivi]

I think everyone is hoping for a nice overhaul of the tech tree. I'm of the minority opinion though that its probably right to start players off with the basic MK1 rocket set up, with probe parts and fairings available immediately along with basic options like the first decouplers, heat shields, and the terrier. I would push planes off to the second tier in part because flying and landing planes in KSP is actually more difficult than flying rockets, but also because this is Kerbal SPACE program and most of the emphasis is on getting out there, exploring other planets, and building colonies. From a pacing standpoint there should be a straight line to making that happen in as few missions as possible. 

Edited February 6, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[Superfluous J]

14 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

Intercept won't repeat the mistakes that Squad made

100% agreed. They'll make NEW mistakes!

17 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

I'm of the minority opinion though that its probably right to start players off with the basic MK1 rocket set up, with probe parts and fairings available immediately along with basic options like the first decouplers, heat shields, and the terrier.

I agree with this 100% as well. Of all the complaints about the tech tree, "you don't start with sounding rockets and probe cores" has never seemed reasonable to me.

It's bad enough I have to do the "science shuffle" on the launch pad every new save. I don't want to also have to launch a half dozen sounding rockets and fly a biplane to the island airbase before I can get to space.

[Scarecrow71]

1 hour ago, Superfluous J said:

It's bad enough I have to do the "science shuffle" on the launch pad every new save. I don't want to also have to launch a half dozen sounding rockets and fly a biplane to the island airbase before I can get to space

Agreed.  This is why I have a career save from my recent Caveman exploits off to the side so that if I want to start a new career I can just grab a copy of that and blam!  Bunch of funds and Tier V already unlocked.

I will say that I honestly hope the tech tree is split into 2 separate trees, 1 for rocketry and 1 for planes, so that we can choose which path to take.  Personally, I've flown fewer than 5 planes total in the game; I'm no good at building them, and flying them is just too hard for what I want to do.  I would like to just stick to flying rockets and not have to have all that aircraft stuff cluttering up my parts and tech tree.  And I'm sure there are players who would like to only go after plane stuff.

[t_v]

58 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

I will say that I honestly hope the tech tree is split into 2 separate trees, 1 for rocketry and 1 for planes, so that we can choose which path to take.  Personally, I've flown fewer than 5 planes total in the game; I'm no good at building them, and flying them is just too hard for what I want to do.  I would like to just stick to flying rockets and not have to have all that aircraft stuff cluttering up my parts and tech tree.  And I'm sure there are players who would like to only go after plane stuff.

I respectfully disagree, because I think the way that plane and rocket parts are related or separated will have big impacts on the way players play the game. I think that the more the game encourages people to use all of the different options (submarines, rovers, planes, hopping rockets, slow-burning probes, etc.) the more engaging the experience will be, and it is worth disrupting some peoples’ experiences to allow for more diverse gameplay. It is fine to use conventional rockets to do everything, but the fuel savings of rovers, the long range and cargo capacity of planes, the efficiency of deep space rockets are all things that players should be guided into instead of them having to work to engage with those systems. I also barely use planes, or really anything except for large crewed craft, but I would like KSP 2 to sort of force me to at least unlock the option to while I’m developing more nuclear propulsion. 

[K^2]

4 hours ago, t_v said:

I respectfully disagree, because I think the way that plane and rocket parts are related or separated will have big impacts on the way players play the game. I think that the more the game encourages people to use all of the different options (submarines, rovers, planes, hopping rockets, slow-burning probes, etc.) the more engaging the experience will be, and it is worth disrupting some peoples’ experiences to allow for more diverse gameplay.

Yeah, but also, the way they block each other doesn't make sense in a lot of places.

I think a good compromise would be to have a few starting nodes in a tree, not just one. Say, a rocketry starter, a planes starter, and a land vehicles starter. As you go up the tech tree on these, they'll start merging and mixing together, eventually becoming one big tree of all sorts of tech. But early on, you could start entirely with rockets or entirely with planes and build your tech up a little bit before you start diversifying.

I get that you'd like to encourage players to try other things, but the way it stands now, starting with rockets is the only way to play. Splitting the tech up is the best way to allow people to try everything early. And having the tech trees merge is a good way to encourage players who might have been stuck with just one type of tech to diversify.

[Chilkoot]

On 2/5/2022 at 3:45 AM, The Aziz said:

Let's start with the fact that we don't even know if the tech tree will exist. I mean it probably will, you got to get new parts somehow (by making scientific research, perhaps?), but not in current form. Don't think of KSP2 with KSP1 in mind.

Spot on.  There may be no clickable spend to unlock things at all.    EG:  You want ISRU life support parts for your Duna base?  Establish a Mun polar station with X population to unlock in-situ regolith H2O extraction (obviously made-up example).

We don't know much about the new progression system except that it will be tied to both exploration and colonies in some capacity.  I welcome the era of no more KSC science cheesing rovers or god-like orbital research facilities.  As a player I want to be forced to get out there and *do* stuff, and be rewarded for the same.

[Truebadour]

What I would love to see is the inclusion of resources in unlocking the tech. Something like just using science points is fine in the early game but get rather boring in the late game in my opinion.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

20 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

100% agreed. They'll make NEW mistakes

I'm ready to see these NEW mistakes

WenDrop?

[t_v]

3 hours ago, Chilkoot said:

There may be no clickable spend to unlock things at all.    EG:  You want ISRU life support parts for your Duna base?  Establish a Mun polar station with X population to unlock in-situ regolith H2O extraction

This is really interesting. Instead of looking at a bunch of blocks to think about how much [science resource] is needed to reach a certain tech, players can look at what missions need to be run to reach a certain tech. It would be hard to keep it open ended and consistent at the same time, but it could be a really cool way to unlock tech, with new tech nodes essentially being the reward for particularly meaningful missions. Maybe this is the “Boom events” that were referenced, where certain milestones give you more population and with this could unlock tech?

[Scarecrow71]

3 hours ago, Chilkoot said:

We don't know much about the new progression system except that it will be tied to both exploration and colonies in some capacity.  I welcome the era of no more KSC science cheesing rovers or god-like orbital research facilities.  As a player I want to be forced to get out there and *do* stuff, and be rewarded for the same.

Truer words have never been said.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

17 minutes ago, t_v said:

This is really interesting. Instead of looking at a bunch of blocks to think about how much [science resource] is needed to reach a certain tech, players can look at what missions need to be run to reach a certain tech. It would be hard to keep it open ended and consistent at the same time, but it could be a really cool way to unlock tech, with new tech nodes essentially being the reward for particularly meaningful missions. Maybe this is the “Boom events” that were referenced, where certain milestones give you more population and with this could unlock tech?

This has a certain appeal.

My KSP experience is best described as haphazard.  (Almost wrote 'half-ahem- hazard' ... yeah, that will work).  I have a ton of fun building and exploring until I get to both moons and have stations... and then I'm running too many missions to keep track of what is supposed to be doing what where, and then either overbuild or underbuild a mission to another planet and then stuff gets kind of hard (b/c I don't get the physics and can't math my way to success)... and then I kind of peter out for a while.

Hoping their development scheme (that is 'player-development' track and the tutorials and work that @Just Jim are putting out) will help a neanderthal like me get into the later stages of planetary exploration!

Edited February 6, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[BigStar Aerospace]

Jeez! Thanks everyone, didn't think this thread would be so popular!

 

On 2/5/2022 at 4:49 PM, Pthigrivi said:

I think everyone is hoping for a nice overhaul of the tech tree. I'm of the minority opinion though that its probably right to start players off with the basic MK1 rocket set up, with probe parts and fairings available immediately along with basic options like the first decouplers, heat shields, and the terrier. I would push planes off to the second tier in part because flying and landing planes in KSP is actually more difficult than flying rockets, but also because this is Kerbal SPACE program and most of the emphasis is on getting out there, exploring other planets, and building colonies. From a pacing standpoint there should be a straight line to making that happen in as few missions as possible. 

I think now thing that the plane parts shouldn't be on the tech tree and that they should be on the side already there for you, so you can do some of what NASA did with the Bell X-1 and just fly around Kerbin to get the surface science instead of having to sit on the pad, that way the game comes from the 'closer to real life' perspective. This of course would be for the more hardcore players that want to do just a bit more, but for the more subtle players, we just need to fix the whole 'Kerbals first, then primitive sounding rockets far down the line' by switching that up.

[The Aziz]

I think it should be based on "what did we learn from this?". Like you may not have the tech (spaceworthy capsule, engines etc) to send a Kerbal into space at the beginning, but you may have a cockpit, some jets (to work on the spacecraft itself, after you get some experience from in-atmo flights) some small SRBs for sounding rockets with basic control point (to develop better attitude control and better, bigger engines, capable of reaching space). That I can call "progression". If there's a tech tree, you may indeed have a slightly spoilery look at what's needed for next step, I guess that could encourage exploration better than rolling around KSC to get half of the parts available in the game lol.

I mean I can always just not look, because I know I will try to reach the Mun at some point - let the newly developed tech surprise me.

Edited February 7, 2022 by The Aziz

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

7 hours ago, BigStar Aerospace said:

think now thing that the plane parts shouldn't be on the tech tree

The part implementation through the tree always seemed awkward. 

It does not make sense to have access to rockets but not planes when you start.  So if there is a tech tree - rockets and planes should be parallel progressions, not parts of the same tree. 

I'm okay with being forced to wait for certain later parts of the plane tree to open (pending acquisition of tech on the rocket tree). 

Having the ability to build and fly a simple plane from the beginning also makes sense from an onboarding perspective: learning controls and the UI, etc in a virtual thing that most people have experienced 

[MarcAbaddon]

I'll go against the grain and hope that manned space flight is still the start of the tech tree, before unmanned tech and planes.

It's obviously not similar to our technological development, but KSP always was about rockets and Kerbals. Forcing the player to develop planes first would detract from this, as would only launching remotely controlled rockets. Since KSP also had a progression from normal plane tech into spaceplanes it can't be completely divorced from the main tech tree either. The design considerations for planes are *very* different from rockets (and they are harder to fly) so it wouldn't be a good tutorial for the rocket part either.

What I wouldn't mind is having the unmanned parts appear a bit earlier in the tech tree and I do agree about having fairings a lot earlier.

More realistic tech trees have their place, but IMHO that's something better left for mods same as ullage motors, limited ignitions and gimbal lock.

[Chilkoot]

17 hours ago, t_v said:

[...] Maybe this is the “Boom events” that were referenced, where certain milestones give you more population and with this could unlock tech?

This is exactly the impression I get from the interviews and reveals as well.  I could be misreading it, but glad to see someone else taking away the same gist of things at least.

[Pthigrivi]

The thing is we're trying to get players not just into orbit and to the Mun, but deeper into the Kerbolar system, setting up colonies and multiple resource chains before players go interstellar. If there was any point in putting all this gorgeous work into Glumo and Gurdamma you're really going to want to keep the pace of advancement high so players can start building their big interstellar colony ships in 50-60 missions or so. I think planes are a lot of fun and could be a nice side-hustle for exploration around Kerbin for those who are into that but you don't want it to become a major distraction. Right now we just don't know all that much about how science and exploration will work, so it's hard to guess the overall impact. My instinct though would be let players unlock probes and fairings after the first sub-orbital flight and basic plane parts after the second suborbital flight, or they could put those points into unlocking things like heat shields, the terrier and reliant, decouplers and fuel ducts to push straight to their first orbital flight and start thinking about moon landings. Players who liked planes could do a few local flights to unlock some medium wings and fuselages, the Wheesley and Panther, and players who like to do probes in the early game could focus on PV, batteries and rover parts. In the end though even this stuff should really tap out in terms of returns within 3-4 missions so we don't end up bogged down farming small potatoes around Kerbin when really we should be trying to get ourselves out to Duna and Jool and beyond.

Edited February 7, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[shdwlrd]

Specifically unlocking plane, rover, and possibly boat parts, they will need to be unlocked much sooner in the progression. You will need to learn how to use them prior to leaving the star system. Yes, they have limited use in the Kerbol system, but they are still quite useful. If you're transferring resources between surface bases/colonies surface vehicles or aircraft maybe the more efficient option.

[t_v]

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

I think planes are a lot of fun and could be a nice side-hustle for exploration around Kerbin for those who are into that but you don't want it to become a major distraction.

6 minutes ago, shdwlrd said:

they will need to be unlocked much sooner in the progression. You will need to learn how to use them prior to leaving the star system…. If you're transferring resources between surface bases/colonies surface vehicles or aircraft maybe the more efficient option.

On the contrary, planes should be unlocked later in the tech tree in order to stop people from using them in Kerbin SOI. I agree that planes are useful to transport stuff between surface bases and flying a plane can be much less time consuming than a sun-orbital hop for the player, especially because piloting a plane and landing it within a small area is much easier than landing something with much less aerodynamic control, thus allowing a player to progress more easily. Not a side hustle. Next, if players unlock all their plane parts quickly, they will only really be able to use them on Kerbin and then we get the problem of people using planes to fly around grinding for science. If the player already has the infrastructure to launch a plane to Duna when they get their plane tech, they are more likely to start using planes on other planets instead of using them as a side hustle. Basic plane parts should be unlocked sooner to allow players to get comfortable with the concept of flying one, but they should be severely limited to discourage biome grinding. 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

...unlock... basic plane parts after the second suborbital flight,

That mimics the current system - which, again, has always seemed odd to me.  Like a 'gamification' or anachronism to the original game.  The 'feel' I think most people have is that planes came before rockets - so if you are playing a rocket game that has planes in it... not having planes at the start (and having to unlock planes only after flying rockets) is weird.  I 'get' why Squad did that: the focus was on rockets... but this is KSP2, and if we're looking to broaden the audience, we don't have to make the same choices they did.

I'd like to see basic plane parts (just barely enough to build a jet to explore the local area) available alongside the basic rocket stuff.  And then parallel trees.  Certainly have 'research' into advanced composites affect the availability of parts for both trees, but given that this is a spaceflight game, certainly the rocket tree has a lot more branches.  Where the rocket tree might go 1-->23--->56--->78910---->12,13,14,15,16, etc. the plane tree might only go 1--------->4------------>11----------->21 with it offering wings and aerodynamic surfaces and atmosphere breathing engines.  Yeah, once you unlock a 'science' thing on the rocket tree you can certainly attach it to your plane - just like you can use basic plane parts on your rockets if you want to.  That 'sandbox' crazy contraption feel is important to keep, IMO.

32 minutes ago, shdwlrd said:

Specifically unlocking plane, rover, and possibly boat parts, they will need to be unlocked much sooner in the progression.

Did not think about this while writing the above: but rover (and boat???) parts should be sooner.  We have had the wheel for a long time now!  Personally, I'd like to see those 'progression' steps be related to one another, as well.  Not just throwing a weird 'rover wheel' into something on the 'Advanced Rocketry' Branch - but have it be its own branch; where once you start unlocking rover parts the subsequent branches relate to rover parts.  Just makes sense.

 

Certainly for balance - they can make unlocking 'advanced rover wheels' come much later in the progression - like I describe for the plane progression (even if this equates to skipping 'levels''; you get a basic wheel early, then have to wait for mid-game to get better wheeled options, then maybe once 'bases' start becoming available, even better wheels... mimicing the development of and availability of technologies 'feel' tied to progression and need.  (Certainly we did not have steel wire and aluminum tread wheels being manufactured until someone dreamed up a need for a Lunar Rover).

Edited February 7, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[shdwlrd]

29 minutes ago, t_v said:

On the contrary, planes should be unlocked later in the tech tree in order to stop people from using them in Kerbin SOI. I agree that planes are useful to transport stuff between surface bases and flying a plane can be much less time consuming than a sun-orbital hop for the player, especially because piloting a plane and landing it within a small area is much easier than landing something with much less aerodynamic control, thus allowing a player to progress more easily

The best place to learn to fly is Kerbin. The sooner you are exposed to flying, the more time you have to practice. 

33 minutes ago, t_v said:

Next, if players unlock all their plane parts quickly, they will only really be able to use them on Kerbin and then we get the problem of people using planes to fly around grinding for science

I'm going to answer this with a quote from The Aziz.

On 2/5/2022 at 2:45 AM, The Aziz said:

Don't think of KSP2 with KSP1 in mind.

We don't know how science or progression will work. There maybe little or no progression available on Kerbin. Maybe Kerbin is going to be your learning/testing grounds and the real progression will come from visiting other bodies in the system. We just don't know.