Does KSP2 need Kerbal classes and experience?

[Zaffre]

15 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Lots of people have said "I don't want this to become a tedious management sim", but if as a player you're tasked with individually managing the training and job assignments of dozens of Kerbals isn't that exactly what you've created? I'm not just talking about colonies. Forget colonies. Im talking about a dozen different vessels, mining rigs, science outposts, and resource freighters on half a dozen planets, each with a crew of 3 or 6 even 12 kerbals. You could very easily have 50-100 kerbals to manually click "You work in this science lab, you pilot this ship, you manage this greenhouse", etc. each time you dock or switch crews or depart a station or colony. I personally want kerbals to be important to the game, but is that really the best way to go about it? 

It doesn't have to be a tedious management system, and judging by the comments on interstellar travel it's not going to be, with automatic management said to be coming iirc. Something like what you say with an excessive amount of kerbals would be UX/UI suicide and will not happen. Chances are we may not even use individual kerbals like how they are in KSP 1, but instead guiding the ship's/station's functions in general with its own keys/UI without having to query kerbals one by one as that's less tedious and more intuitive. Now, there's going to be some layers of complexity somewhere even if inconsequential.

If zero complexity or nuance is desired however, then a game where rocket science and interstellar/interplanetary logistics is involved probably isn't going to be your thing. Of course, this is all mere speculation. The first EA release will have less features than the current stock game of KSP 1 and there's quite a ways to go after that.

 

 

[Bej Kerman]

On 10/27/2022 at 3:25 PM, regex said:

It's pretty insulting that a pilot kerbal has to go to another SoI to learn how to hold a different heading when there's a frickin' navball right in front of their face...

Funny how "gameplay should trump realism" only applies in specific cases...

tech tree delay between star systems cough

Players should be encouraged to learn how to hold headings themselves before they have the option to make their pilot do it for them.

[t_v]

37 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Lots of people have said "I don't want this to become a tedious management sim", but if as a player you're tasked with individually managing the training and job assignments of dozens of Kerbals isn't that exactly what you've created? I'm not just talking about colonies. Forget colonies. Im talking about a dozen different vessels, mining rigs, science outposts, and resource freighters on half a dozen planets, each with a crew of 3 or 6 even 12 kerbals. You could very easily have 50-100 kerbals to manually click "You work in this science lab, you pilot this ship, you manage this greenhouse", etc. each time you dock or switch crews or depart a station or colony. I personally want kerbals to be important to the game, but is that really the best way to go about it? 

I'm fairly certain the "I don't want this to become a tedious management sim" is why people are proposing much less grindy ways to go about implementing classes. If it came to a choice between the current class system and no class system, I would have no classes. But just like the other engineering aspects of a ship, the class system adds in additional design considerations, so that one kerbal can't just perform every function necessary on a mission.

The current class system is interesting because for my first Jool-5 mission (sadly undocumented), I actually had to consider who to bring. The flight plans required several vessels manned by pilots at the same time, and that meant a different experiment storage system because I couldn't bring a scientist on some of the landings. Is it worth it to send an engineer down to manually detach empty fuel tanks on Tylo, or should I bring a pilot to make docking without any SAS or RCS less of a pain? (I chose engineer, wrongly, and didn't even save that much mass).

These are engaging decisions that could not be made without the class system. The current system really sucks, especially on playthroughs with xp, but the idea of classes can bring a lot of depth to the game, similar to life support. And again, how grindy it is really is up to implementation. 

[Guest]

32 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

Players should be encouraged to learn how to hold headings themselves before they have the option to make their pilot do it for them.

How about those of us who've been playing for thousands of hours? Surely I've learned how to do that by now...

[Bej Kerman]

7 minutes ago, regex said:

How about those of us who've been playing for thousands of hours? Surely I've learned how to do that by now...

I'd say "Players should be encouraged to learn how to hold headings themselves before they have the option to make their pilot do it for them." strongly implies that the focus of the subject is new players, not experienced ones, else the "learn how to hold headings themselves" in the sentence would be somewhat redundant.

[Guest]

16 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

I'd say "Players should be encouraged to learn how to hold headings themselves before they have the option to make their pilot do it for them." strongly implies that the focus of the subject is new players, not experienced ones, else the "learn how to hold headings themselves" in the sentence would be somewhat redundant.

Oh, nice. So every time we start a new career we've gotta take a bunch of pilots on a joyride across a few SoI in order to "educate" them on how to actually do something. Nevermind that they don't have to actually learn how to do something, they just need to be along for the ride. Natch this is better than learning how to do it in a flight simulator or something.

The entire kerbal experience system is utterly ridiculous. You can't even claim it's "playability over realism" since it's just tear-inducing boring gameplay. At the least kerbals should gain experience for doing things appropriate to their career rather than going on a joyride...

[Bej Kerman]

16 minutes ago, regex said:

The entire kerbal experience system is utterly ridiculous. You can't even claim it's "playability over realism" since it's just tear-inducing boring gameplay. At the least kerbals should gain experience for doing things appropriate to their career rather than going on a joyride...

I'd say pilots, engineers and scientists can all learn stuff on a simple flight. Makes sense; being in orbit gives all three professions the chance to learn something.

[Pthigrivi]

The main reason the XP system works the way it does is that its trying to create an incentive for exploration. The problem is because it’s tied to each individual Kerbal it instead invites numerous return journeys to places you’ve already been, producing grind rather than exploration. I think Intercept might be on the right track with ‘boom events’, building that central main-quest series of exploration rewards that for some reason existed but were not visible in KSP1. And so long as they’re clever about the pre-colony early-game boom rewards that should work fine. Maybe those boom events unlock skills for all kerbals across your program, or maybe its something else like your total off-world population? Whatever it is the application should be en-masse rather than require individual management. 
 

3 hours ago, Zaffre said:

Something like what you say with an excessive amount of kerbals would be UX/UI suicide and will not happen. Chances are we may not even use individual kerbals like how they are in KSP 1, but instead guiding the ship's/station's functions in general with its own keys/UI without having to query kerbals one by one as that's less tedious and more intuitive. Now, there's going to be some layers of complexity somewhere even if inconsequential.

I completely agree. In a lot of ways if we’re trying to create a paradigm in which Kerbals themselves are both an important part of gameplay and also not a huge management time-suck we kind of want to think about the personnel-allocation UI and work backwards from there. Lets transport ourselves to 2024. The full game is out, colonies and interstellar and resources are fully integrated. You might have a year-long save with 3 or 4 colonies, multiple outposts, an interstellar vessel and science missions on their way, numerous automated supply runs, whathaveyou. Say you have 200 Kerbals spread across 2 dozen vessels, stations, and bases. What is the most efficient way to shift your workforce when you want to, say, shift a colony’s production from research and methalox to LS + metallic hydrogen? You’re dismantling and recycling modules, adding new production and storage, increasing power output, maybe juggling supply run components, but mainly you want to know that you have enough people to do what needs doing. How do you apply your workforce? 
 

There are a lot of games that tackle this problem. Frostpunk is my favorite, but thats me. Ideally you’d be able to do this in the BAE editor with a workforce overly displaying each module’s jobs and how many are filled. Say its a greenhouse. It needs 5 kerbals to function at 100% but you’ve only allocated 3 so the overlay says “3/5… + or -?” and you can add or subtract from that number. This system might even autofill, but I think you still want the ability to customize each to set or change priorities. 
 

This question I keep digging at is with everything else going on in this game do you still really need multiple classes? If when you started to change your colony over from research and methalox you had 6 science jobs and 14 engineering jobs, but you’re changing to LS and MH and now you need 16 science jobs and 4 engineering jobs can you re-educate or cross-train your workforce?

Edited October 29, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[Strawberry]

After thinking on it, I think itd fit best if the class system remained, and was actively a thing in both colonies and spaceships, and there was various subsystems of these classes. Both colonies and (with the addition of large command pods) ships, will have a lot of kerbals on them, and these kerbals playing a large role in how you play seems good. I think it would work best if there was a passive system for colonies that lead to kerbal classes taking on a pyramid shape, to where you have lots of kerbals who dont have much talent, a group of kerbals who are decently talented, and one or two leader kerbals who are very talented at there class. Any of the kerbals you can take on any spaceship, but taking kerbals will impact how your colony runs, while your high tier kerbals will work great for expeditions, thatll come at the cost of making your colonies worse. This makes taking out your kerbal players for expeditions a big deal. I think this will promote investment in your kerbals, and lead to players caring a lot about some kerbals, and make the loss of those kerbals feel bad. This would also promote shifting kerbals around to help out with colonies (such as moving the research director to a new colony in order for them to speed up the growth).

[Pthigrivi]

10 minutes ago, Strawberry said:

I think it would work best if there was a passive system for colonies that lead to kerbal classes taking on a pyramid shape, to where you have lots of kerbals who dont have much talent, a group of kerbals who are decently talented, and one or two leader kerbals who are very talented at there class.

Ahhh, now a philosophical question: why should players care more about some kerbals than others?

[Superfluous J]

8 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Ahhh, now a philosophical question: why should players care more about some kerbals than others?

It makes the game more fun.

I'm not saying it does, but that's the only answer that makes sense.

[Pthigrivi]

20 minutes ago, Superfluous J said:

It makes the game more fun.

I'm not saying it does, but that's the only answer that makes sense.

But why! Im not asking this question rhetorically. I think it has to do with trying to narrow down a few personalities out of hundreds that we can be more emotionally involved with, but it begs some weird questions about celebrity and ‘hero’ worship and big man theory… like if kerbals are stand ins for people and some kerbals are worth more than others are we confessing that we believe some humans are worth more than others? Sorry if Im taking this too deep, I really am asking as it relates to how players relate to characters in different types of games, and how that might relate to individual vs collective skill leveling. 

Edited October 29, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[Vl3d]

9 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Do crew members get sick?

yes

9 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

How much clicking should you have to do to fix it?

2-3 if you brought the right resources and crew

9 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

If when you left you forgot to put a medic on board what are the consequences?

injuries and medical emergencies get worse, crew could perish

9 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Are those consequences solvable if the vessel is 2 years into a 3 year transit to Jool?

you have to take responsibility for the crew you send on missions and how you prepared for it

9 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

If your engineer gets sick and so your reactor shuts down and you don't have power so the vessel bricks is the mission just ruined?

basically yes

9 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Like is this a place where we want to create more complexity?

yes, we need life support and medical gameplay - we have to care more about the well being of the crew because that responsibility is the most important gameplay element compared to probes

9 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

Is any of this really about the core game elements of building and flying or is it just a lot of clicking and potential frustration?

I'm not asking for more clicking, I'm asking for a vision when designing and operating crewed missions that focuses on the most important aspect in all of spaceflight (and which creates the most interesting engineering puzzles): crew survivability. This was totally ignored in KSP1, it's not right.

Edited October 29, 2022 by Vl3d

[Pthigrivi]

8 hours ago, Vl3d said:

yes

2-3 if you brought the right resources and crew

injuries and medical emergencies get worse, crew could perish

you have to take responsibility for the crew you send on missions and how you prepared for it

basically yes

yes, we need life support and medical gameplay - we have to care more about the well being of the crew because that responsibility is the most important gameplay element compared to probes

I'm not asking for more clicking, I'm asking for a vision when designing and operating crewed missions that focuses on the most important aspect in all of spaceflight (and which creates the most interesting engineering puzzles): crew survivability. This was totally ignored in KSP1, it's not right.

This sounds cool! But... maybe more fun for one or 3 vessels, less maybe for dozens of active flights? Some folks might be interested and I think this and many other more involved social proposals would make great mods. But I'm talking about the base game--the core, bedrock dynamics upon which the game is built. The base game is a foundation. It needs to be as stable and fuss-free as it can be relative to the gameplay dynamism it produces. As brilliant as the core system was much of what bogged KSP1 down was inefficient mechanics that created repetitive busywork rather than impelling creative solutions and pushing boundaries. That's what we're trying to avoid. 
 

17 hours ago, t_v said:

I'm fairly certain the "I don't want this to become a tedious management sim" is why people are proposing much less grindy ways to go about implementing classes. If it came to a choice between the current class system and no class system, I would have no classes. But just like the other engineering aspects of a ship, the class system adds in additional design considerations, so that one kerbal can't just perform every function necessary on a mission.

The current class system is interesting because for my first Jool-5 mission (sadly undocumented), I actually had to consider who to bring. The flight plans required several vessels manned by pilots at the same time, and that meant a different experiment storage system because I couldn't bring a scientist on some of the landings. Is it worth it to send an engineer down to manually detach empty fuel tanks on Tylo, or should I bring a pilot to make docking without any SAS or RCS less of a pain? (I chose engineer, wrongly, and didn't even save that much mass).

These are engaging decisions that could not be made without the class system. The current system really sucks, especially on playthroughs with xp, but the idea of classes can bring a lot of depth to the game, similar to life support. And again, how grindy it is really is up to implementation. 

I think this is good reasoning, but like you said there are issues. First, its relatively rare that I need to fix anything. I also don't particularly want to have to fix anything unless I've bonked a solar array or gotten a flat tire. I certainly don't want the game to create a bunch of things to fix and bog gameplay down to justify a class that doesn't need to exist. You also are going to need to have probe cores that can do complex maneuvers, and if we're adding something like life support I think it's very likely that it will be easier to add a probe core to any vessel than to add a pilot. So all that's really left is resource collection and science. Maybe you could add-in autopilot functions,... but will those not also be available to probe cores? So we're really only making it necessary to have 2 kerbals to do everything rather than one, and to facilitate that we need to individually train (even if its instant) dozens of kerbals and carefully weigh the need for one role or another. As you add roles it only increases management headaches for only very minor craft design implications. What I'm getting at is that adding classes is a deeply inefficient way of encouraging larger crew compliments when we could create some more direct and flexible incentive that doesn't require finicky individual career management of hundreds of kerbals. 

Edited October 29, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[t_v]

1 minute ago, Pthigrivi said:

only very minor craft design implications

This is not the case. Designing an elaborate decoupling system versus designing a ship that is meant to be reconfigured in multiple ways mid-flight is a pretty big design implication. Also, packing only the experiments your kerbals can run is a design implication - adding more sophisticated experiments requires a different type of kerbal

3 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

adding classes is a deeply inefficient way of encouraging larger crew compliments when we could create some more elastic incentive that takes less finicky management. 

The point isn't about encouraging larger crew complements, and I'm not seeing why you return to it. The point is creating interesting decisions with the crew complement that you have. Do you staff your entire science lab with scientists, when you know you don't have enough space for the engineers? Who do you send down onto the surface for each mission? Do you remove a scientist from a lab to collect more ground data, or do you bring an extra scientist to fulfill that role? The class system doesn't necessarily encourage a larger crew past a certain point, it encourages a full crew, with a mix of specialists relevant to the mission at hand. The emotional connection here is also important to the core of the game; instead of the focus being on the spaceship which is populated by some interchangeable green blobs with expressions, the focus is on the whole space mission, with a carefully (or automatically) selected crew of astronauts fulfilling roles on the similarly specialized spacecraft. 

[Pthigrivi]

2 hours ago, t_v said:

This is not the case. Designing an elaborate decoupling system versus designing a ship that is meant to be reconfigured in multiple ways mid-flight is a pretty big design implication. Also, packing only the experiments your kerbals can run is a design implication - adding more sophisticated experiments requires a different type of kerbal

The problem is the game still needs relatively light and cheap probe cores, and there's nothing that prevents players from slapping one to a transfer stage or any other vessel. That means you don't need multiple pilots, or really even any pilots. The game also probably wants to make unmanned ISRU collectors possible even if they're less efficient, and players can easily revert-away any accidental damage, so you don't really need engineers either. So now you're down to one class. That means you still just need one kerbal to take surface samples and the class system isn't creating any of those design decisions you describe. And then you have to ask: if you only need one class, why not just have one class?
 

2 hours ago, t_v said:

The point isn't about encouraging larger crew complements, and I'm not seeing why you return to it. 

Because as described above the class system is not actually changing anything about how missions are planned or built. Because you don't need pilots or engineers none of the scenarios you listed change if all kerbals are just "Kerbalnauts." If you've got a science lab that takes two to operate but you want to keep it in orbit rather than spend the dV to cart it to the surface and back you need 3 kerbals: 2 to run the orbital lab and one to break off and go down and collect samples. What's changing the mission profile and the design of the vessel is not the presence of the class system but the need for larger crews. What's creating the need for larger crews is the need for multiple roles or jobs to be filled simultaneously no matter who is doing them.
 

2 hours ago, t_v said:

The emotional connection here is also important to the core of the game; instead of the focus being on the spaceship which is populated by some interchangeable green blobs with expressions, the focus is on the whole space mission, with a carefully (or automatically) selected crew of astronauts fulfilling roles on the similarly specialized spacecraft. 

This is really all that's left. The classes aren't gameplay elements, they're just there for role play. This was fine in KSP1 because it came with no real extra work on the part of the player, at least until you'd built up 50 or 80 of them and then it became a pain. In KSP2 the cost in terms of gameplay distraction is more onerous because it requires players to spend hours sifting through crew manifests, assigning classes and roles to dozens of kerbals at a time. If there's just one class "Kerbalnauts", then the process can be almost entirely automatic even for huge colonies. You know with all your various labs and greenhouses and production facilities you need to fill 80 jobs, so if you've got 80 kerbals in that colony there's no need for you to manually manage anything. The same would be true on vessels. If you've got a big Jool 5 and you want it to break apart and send a big lab to Laythe, a smaller lab to Val, you've got equipment to set up on the surface and maybe a complex reactor to maintain just check that the number of crew matches the number of jobs. Nothing is preventing you from role playing while you do this, and there's no additional management minutia created to for that purpose alone. 

Edited October 29, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

21 hours ago, regex said:

How about those of us who've been playing for thousands of hours? Surely I've learned how to do that by now...

That's the difference between Career /Science mode and Sandbox, isn't it? 

 

Experienced KSP players have no reason to limit themselves to a progression system - unless they choose to (once the full version is released). 

As it stands - we should all get a full featured (albeit limited) sandbox to start with - and I've seen no indication that we'd have to unlock anything to progress at all during the EA.

Edited October 29, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[t_v]

1 hour ago, Pthigrivi said:

The problem is the game still needs relatively light and cheap probe cores, and there's nothing that prevents players from slapping one to a transfer stage or any other vessel. That means you don't need multiple pilots, or really even any pilots. The game also probably wants to make unmanned ISRU collectors possible even if they're less efficient, and players can easily revert-away any accidental damage, so you don't really need engineers either. So now you're down to one class. That means you still just need one kerbal to take surface samples and the class system isn't creating any of those design decisions you describe. And then you have to ask: if you only need one class, why not just have one class?

By this logic, you only really need 1.25 m parts. In the 1.25m class you are going to have everything you need (engines, fuel tanks and probe cores) so why go further? Sure the other sizes are better for their jobs, but it is just an efficiency problem and you can revert away any mishaps that come from having noodle rockets. I think you are seeing the current implementation of KSP 1 and then deciding that kerbals aren't useful due to that. Pilots gain the ability to lock onto a target before probes do if you don't just stay in the Kerbin system, engineers literally make things more efficient (and I don't see how people would just ignore efficiency gains), and as you said, scientists have superior data collection and processing ability. People complain about probes being OP and eliminating the need for kerbals, and forget that since this is a game, you can make it such that kerbals get better navigation skills before probes do. If we only needed one class we could just get rid of classes, the point is to make classes useful and thus have more in-depth gameplay. 

21 hours ago, t_v said:

If it came to a choice between the current class system and no class system, I would have no classes

I feel like you are taking the uselessness of the current class system and making the argument that classes in general are useless in KSP 2. There are lots of games that have meaningful class systems, and I am arguing that KSP 2 should be designed to be one of them. 

[Pthigrivi]

6 hours ago, t_v said:

By this logic, you only really need 1.25 m parts. In the 1.25m class you are going to have everything you need (engines, fuel tanks and probe cores) so why go further? .... If we only needed one class we could just get rid of classes, the point is to make classes useful and thus have more in-depth gameplay. 

Well, the analogy here doesn't hold because adding larger parts actually solves a real problem in the game: launching larger payloads more easily. You could strap a zillion 1.25m parts together but that would increase part count and as you point out lead to wobbly instability, unnecessary launch failures, wasted player time, and worse gameplay. 2.5 and larger parts fix that problem. Adding classes by itself doesn't actually solve anything. By itself it only creates management hassle. You can of course add problems to the game, making it so only some kerbals can do some things or create artificial tasks that only specific kerbals can carry out, but again, you're now adding management busiwork and complication to justify a system that by itself only adds management busiwork. It is the classic "solution searching for a problem." 
 

6 hours ago, t_v said:

I feel like you are taking the uselessness of the current class system and making the argument that classes in general are useless in KSP 2. There are lots of games that have meaningful class systems, and I am arguing that KSP 2 should be designed to be one of them. 

There is a difference here in that those games are specifically about character and population management. In KSP this is an auxiliary system on an already deeply complicated game. Given that, if one is building this system from scratch, one should tend toward the absolute simplest set of mechanics that solves the relevant problems. And what are those problems, anyway?

1) If there are only a few things that kerbals can do that probes cant there is very little need to bring kerbals at all, reducing design diversity.
2) If one kerbal can do everything a mission requires, there's no need to bring more than one kerbal anywhere, reducing design diversity.
3) If kerbals are important to conduct some tasks or run some modules, either at all or more efficiently, how do players match kerbals to required tasks?

I don't need to tell you this, but grind sucks. As is my mantra on this board: grind = repetition. Any task you put before the player that requires lots of repetitive clicking or scrolling through menus or repetitive, menial tasks sucks up players time and bogs down gameplay. We should be looking for the absolute most seamless, nearly automatic solutions to the problems above so that players can actually focus on what's fun about KSP: building and flying. If it's not contributing to design or navigation it should not exist. KSP2 is going to make this much, much harder because we're not just managing 10 or 20 kerbals, this is hundreds of potential workers and therefor thousands of potential clicks. Don't make things more complicated than they absolutely have to be. This is the key advantage to removing classes. Without classes you don't really have to do anything but count. If a vessel and its required tasks take 10 kerbals to operate put 10 kerbals in it. If your colony has 100 open positions and you only have 90 kerbal inhabitants maybe you need to dial back some production or hit a boom event to increase your worker supply. This is a far more efficient way to solve problems 1-3 above. And when I say efficient I don't mean just mean easier, I mean more respectful of players most valuable resource: time. 
 

PS Ive enjoyed our debates here so much, and not because this is devils advocacy. I genuinely think KSP’s class structure is inefficient from a cost/benefit standpoint, but thats not to say its history in the fandom is irrelevant.  I just really appreciate the ideological breakdown of the subject. 

Edited October 30, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[t_v]

11 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

3) If kerbals are important to conduct some tasks or run some modules, either at all or more efficiently, how do players match kerbals to required tasks?

This is the problem that needs to be solved to make the class system worthwhile. The other two are balancing problems. (As you said, the class system needs to create its own challenges- engineers buffing ISRUs is only a consideration if engineers exist). The key to this is automation. Some simple logic can ensure that colonies put the relevant people in the right places, and when there are too few of a certain class, changing it is done via a simple slider or it just happens automatically to keep colonies in shape. On craft, if you don’t hand-pick your crew, the game will do it for you, again following some simple logic. Scientists in the labs, at least one pilot in each active command pod, and then fill the rest of the spots with a weighted mix of all the classes. The purpose of this is so that if you don’t interact with this system, you can still get by, just like early missions without electrical systems. That way, there’s no extra grind introduced, unless you decide you like making those decisions at which point it is engaging and not grindy. 
 

11 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

We should be looking for the absolute most seamless, nearly automatic solutions to the problems above

I hope what I said matches this description. The point there was that the class system shouldn’t necessarily introduce grind, and could be ignored in exchange for minor issues if you are doing a really specific mission that needed a certain crew makeup. 

11 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

If it's not contributing to design or navigation it should not exist.

I remember either you or the Aziz started a thread about “What is KSP 2 about?” Or something similar. This is probably off topic, but I disagreed that everything should either lend itself to progression and the core gameplay or be minimized/nonexistent. As an example, I liked the fireworks part that got added. It didn’t really have a use in spacecraft design beyond gimmicks and some craft recreations, and nothing it could do would help you progress through the game. However, it added character to the game and let people express themselves more. Even things that aren’t about expression, like anomalies, I would prefer to be in the game than the same anomalies that were required or suggested to progress. A good blend of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is good for a game, and I hope that there are still things to do unconnected with maximizing the core loop in KSP2. And with that tangent complete…

11 hours ago, Pthigrivi said:

KSP2 is going to make this much, much harder because we're not just managing 10 or 20 kerbals, this is hundreds of potential workers and therefor thousands of potential clicks. Don't make things more complicated than they absolutely have to be. This is the key advantage to removing classes. Without classes you don't really have to do anything but count. If a vessel and its required tasks take 10 kerbals to operate put 10 kerbals in it. If your colony has 100 open positions and you only have 90 kerbal inhabitants maybe you need to dial back some production or hit a boom event to increase your worker supply. This is a far more efficient way to solve problems 1-3 above. And when I say efficient I don't mean just mean easier, I mean more respectful of players most valuable resource: time. 

I agree that classes have the potential to become very grindy with the populations attained in KSP 2. And that removing them is the most efficient way to solve those problems. But you can solve those problems without removing classes, and respect players time while you are at it. Despite my tangent above, I would like classes to be in the game because they have the opportunity to make designing and navigation more interesting, and anything that optionally expands the gameplay loop is good to me.

I also enjoy these debates, there are lots of good points all around the issue. 

[Guest]

15 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Experienced KSP players have no reason to limit themselves to a progression system - unless they choose to (once the full version is released). 

Progression system ≠ tutorial.

 

I'm an experienced KSP player, I want the management game on top of the bare simulation that was always promised but never delivered in a satisfactory way.

The bare physic simulation of KSP is not enough to make a full game, it's like a D&D manual without a DM or other players.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

2 hours ago, Master39 said:

Progression system ≠ tutorial

I took a very long break from KSP - right up to the original KSP2 announcement, when I decided to play the game again to get ready for 2.  Started a sandbox iteration and very quickly realized that wasn't what I wanted to do - the career mode was more fun for me, and I started again.

I had no idea how much I had forgotten. 

First time I got a craft to orbit, I was frustrated to not be able to get a maneuver node.  Had to google why.  (people forget when and how you learned what you know).  Turned out to be a very minor inconvenience.  What took me a lot of failures to accomplish the first time I played through took almost no time at all that go-round.  (I hadn't forgotten how to build a ship or the fundamentals of the game - just details like when / how to unlock some of the progressive elements.) 

My point was that when you start a new game, with the progression system reset to '0', you as the player are without some of the things you are used to having...  But the game is role playing the Kerbals haven't developed that yet. 

That's certainly a far cry from being a tutorial.  It's the mode. 

[magnemoe]

On 10/29/2022 at 1:23 AM, Zaffre said:

I suspect the system will be different and I DEARLY hope it is. Having to launch a ship loaded with kerbals just to make flybys to farm XP is tiring, annoying, and nonsensical. Specialization and skills with flexibility over classes with wrought iron limits would be a step up too, but we'll just have to wait and see.

I do hope that the system will resemble an actual space program. That'd be a nice thing to have in a game called 'Kerbal Space Program.'

As I understand the new science system will focus a lot on anomalies who mostly will be special geological features as an strange meteorites or an large crystal.  In short it will still be landing many places but more interesting. 

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I took a very long break from KSP - right up to the original KSP2 announcement, when I decided to play the game again to get ready for 2.  Started a sandbox iteration and very quickly realized that wasn't what I wanted to do - the career mode was more fun for me, and I started again.

I had no idea how much I had forgotten. 

First time I got a craft to orbit, I was frustrated to not be able to get a maneuver node.  Had to google why.  (people forget when and how you learned what you know).  Turned out to be a very minor inconvenience.  What took me a lot of failures to accomplish the first time I played through took almost no time at all that go-round.  (I hadn't forgotten how to build a ship or the fundamentals of the game - just details like when / how to unlock some of the progressive elements.) 

My point was that when you start a new game, with the progression system reset to '0', you as the player are without some of the things you are used to having...  But the game is role playing the Kerbals haven't developed that yet. 

That's certainly a far cry from being a tutorial.  It's the mode. 

KSP1 progression is not indicative of a good progression system or management gameplay.

The example of the maneuver node is the best one. It's just planly terrible game design.

It's bad for new players, it's bad for veterans, it's not a satisfactory reward when you finally unlock it.

It's like having the settings menu or the HUD hidden behind a level up in a RPG.

[Pthigrivi]

5 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

As I understand the new science system will focus a lot on anomalies who mostly will be special geological features as an strange meteorites or an large crystal.  In short it will still be landing many places but more interesting. 

I don’t think we know that yet (do we?) but that would be cool.