Does KSP2 need Kerbal classes and experience?

[magnemoe]

Just now, Pthigrivi said:

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

It was stated by a dev in a tread

 

[Pthigrivi]

2 hours ago, magnemoe said:

It was stated by a dev in a tread

Hm? I don't see a dev comment? 

[Vl3d]

17 hours ago, Master39 said:

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.

I don't agree, I think not having maneuver nodes unlocked at first let's you focus on the basics of manned piloting. The think I love a lot about KSP is the sense of technological progression (especially in the UI / nav helpers).

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

I don't agree, I think not having maneuver nodes unlocked at first let's you focus on the basics of manned piloting.

By the time you're ready to go on your first orbital mission that should be already unlocked, plenty of time to get used to the basics on the sub-orbital hops.

And, given the nature of the sub-orbital hops (you barely need the map view at all) not having the maneuver nodes during those it's not going to make any difference.

 

The maneuver node is a crucial tool and one of the few bits of gameplay in KSP that allows you to learn something without the need of closing the game and go search for information somewhere else. Not having it in the first few orbital launches completely defeats that purpose.

[regex]

7 hours ago, Vl3d said:

I don't agree, I think not having maneuver nodes unlocked at first let's you focus on the basics of manned piloting.

Well that's the problem, you're not focused on "the basics" once you're in orbit. The maneuver node lets you see, safely, what the effects of a particular burn will do. It's tactile and it lets you explore without having to commit. Not having it means you actually have to execute burns and then potentially panic from the results, which means you're not learning.

From a realistic standpoint all that stuff would be calculated on the ground and then transmitted to the pilot, "point x heading, burn for y seconds at z time" and so on. But even before the mission, planners would be doing maths to determine how orbits work and what to do while in space. The maneuver node represents all this as an abstraction for the player. Without it, you're just flying blind, making dumb burns for the sake of making burns. That's not learning; it may be illustrative but it ultimately doesn't have the same sort of exploratory usefulness of the maneuver node. Locking that out is just a recipe for stranding kerbals because "kErBaLs" (and honestly the less we portray kerbals as stunningly incompetent, the better).

For experienced players it's a minor roadbump at best. I can easily get to the Mun without maneuver nodes and with enough extra delta-V, probably Duna too, so you're really not gating progression.