[SPOILERS] Revamped Kerbol system exploration - hypotetical anomaly density

[Vl3d]

I don't think it's a stretch to imagine that the art department and creatives working on KSP2 have made a lot of cool new places to explore on the celestial bodies. I will just use Kerbin to represent what a ~10x increase in the number of anomalies would look like (from currently 20 to 200). The white question marks are existing anomalies in KSP1. The red question marks would be hypothetical new anomalies. We could fly or drive from one interesting place to another and we would have months worth of content to explore. The same could be done for the Mun - increase the number of interesting spots to visit from 8 to 80 (there are surely enough craters) and other celestial bodies. All that's needed to make the planets dense for exploration is creativity and a lot of work.

Edited February 21, 2023 by Vl3d

[Pthigrivi]

Omg no. I love you but this is completely backwards. Remember always: grind = repetition. We need 5x fewer Science locations, not 20x more. Quality over quantity. Every unique biome is another goddamn same-same mission that players feel like they have to do before they take the next step.  Its madness. Players should be interplanetary by mission 10-20 at the least. You can cut to the bone and you aren’t cutting close enough. 

[Vl3d]

14 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

Omg no. I love you but this is completely backwards. Remember always: grind = repetition. We need 5x fewer Science locations, not 20x more. Quality over quantity. Every unique biome is another goddamn same-same mission that players feel like they have to do before they take the next step.  Its madness. Players should be interplanetary by mission 10-20 at the least. You can cut to the bone and you aren’t cutting close enough. 

No, no. Not biomes. Unique landmarks and anomalies, interesting things to discover (not related to science). Relaxed travel and exploration motivation! Just wanted to show what it would feel like to have a dense planet and always have something to discover over the horizon.

Biomes are their own separate thing, they're places to do science, I'm not referring to them. I agree with you we need fewer biomes to prevent grind.

And please no more monoliths and no more copy-paste anomalies!

Edited February 4, 2023 by Vl3d

[SolarAdmiral]

Man. As much as I do want things to go and see, that map of kerbin looks absolutely exhausting to me.

Do you have any idea how long it would take to visit even a fraction of those places? The longest flight on kerbin I ever did with a plane was from woomerang to the edge of the north ice cap. And even at x4 speed the whole way that was by far more flying than I ever wanted to repeat. The longest rover drive I ever did was from near tylo's equator to the ridge of a big crater just to the south for a Jool 5 mission, and that took hours upon hours and that was at x4 too, with several autosaves and loads for rolling and crashing trying to drive at full warp.

Most SSTO launches get into space just around that little peninsula ditectly east of the KSC across the sea, a tiny fraction of the way around kerbin, maybe less than 1/10, and those flights to orbit are long and boring enough.

I'm thinking if KSP2 wants us to drive long distances, it might need a fast travel system. Like maybe an airplane autopilot, or a click and go here function for rovers and ships (spending some fuel and just warping them to the destination,  only making you drive if theres a cliff or some other obstacle). Because I would rather break my monitor open with my own face than drive to all of those markers in real time.

 

 

Edit

And just to make it clear, I definitely also don't want something implemented that makes driving completely trivial. But I don't want to spend hours driving or flying. Because there was very little challenge or skill for driving or sailing in KSP it was more just a test of patience. With the only hard part of flying being landing, which isn't much better, having to endure a long boring flight, to risk everything on a possible crash at the end and need to redo it. It might be hard to balance.

Unless driving in KSP2 is as interesting as Snowrunner, I don't want to have to drive for hours.

Edited February 4, 2023 by SolarAdmiral

[shdwlrd]

You know, some of those "?" would be good places for Intercept to add cites at a later date. But all of them having something special to them, no, too much work. I mean that you are populating an entire planet. Also some of the places you marked already have good special views. With the updated scatter and environmental effects, those places would look absolutely stunning.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Maybe they could add trolls and dungeons in those locations.  Then me and my clan mates can all join in and hit Battle at the same time so I can level up my stamina on my 13th level KerbalWizard?  Kerzards become OP after a while being able to cast the teleport to Duna spell on mobs of enemies - but the clouds, man... the clouds are extraspecialfantastic!

Edited February 4, 2023 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[Vl3d]

6 hours ago, SolarAdmiral said:

Man. As much as I do want things to go and see, that map of kerbin looks absolutely exhausting to me.

Hahaha, this is the first time I think someone has ever said there's too much stuff to do and see on Kerbin. No one would actually force you to discover everything, it's just something you can do from time to time, between missions, when you're bored. But having this kind of content density would actually make some players not want to leave the planets, to give them motivation to actually start colonies so they have a foothold for exploration. I think that's great!

4 hours ago, shdwlrd said:

You know, some of those "?" would be good places for Intercept to add cites at a later date. But all of them having something special to them, no, too much work. I mean that you are populating an entire planet. Also some of the places you marked already have good special views. With the updated scatter and environmental effects, those places would look absolutely stunning.

Some places could have cities or vistas, other places unique anomalies, other would have good science biomes, resource concentrations, new KSCs, colonies in multiplayer.. what @JoeSchmuckatelli said. The point is that we could finally have content in the game and the planets wouldn't be so barren and boring anymore.

Edited February 4, 2023 by Vl3d

[kerbiloid]

Instead of numerous artifact sites:

Intergalactic Spontaneous Space Nomads.

They visit the Kerbin system from time to time, found a temporary camp, and drop or sell exotic artifacts.

You should visit them to get any, before the camp gets turned into pumpkin,

As they may troll the player, it's an implementation of the idea about trolls, too.

P.S.
As the Moon arcs are kinda bridges, maybe there are trolls below them?

Then the arcs can play as trade posts. It's a normal part of plot in the tales.

Say, the space nomads arrive via the arcs as portals.

Edited February 4, 2023 by kerbiloid

[jastrone]

Not 80 tf. that is way to much. and its just on kerbin. this would take weeks of playing constantly just to find all. and they probably wouldnt be that interesting if the devs add thousands of them. I think every planet in the kerbol system should get one or two more anomalies than in ksp 1. we do need quite a bunch of new easter eggs and anomalies on the new planets tho

[tstein]

I think, personally  is that more than density, what we need is some sort of clues system so we can find the anomalies by ourselves. It could even be integrated in the science part.  If you add 10x the nubmer of anomalies, I will guess than 99% will never be seen  by a player. In fact this could result in a much better resolution of  the old contract system. You get hints of something to discover at a certain area.

5 minutes ago, jastrone said:

Not 80 tf. that is way to much. and its just on kerbin. this would take weeks of playing constantly just to find all. and they probably wouldnt be that interesting if the devs add thousands of them. I think every planet in the kerbol system should get one or two more anomalies than in ksp 1. we do need quite a bunch of new easter eggs and anomalies on the new planets tho

In fact I think the solution is not to release all at same time. Add one more each major patch during EA

[pandaman]

In principle I don't disagree. but that density looks way too much for things that would show up on the Kerbnet scan.

I'm all in favour of the 'anomalies' (as in the artificial structures) being about the same overall.   Then relatively small distinct geological/natural anomalies (Mun arches etc) that could perhaps show up on scans/photo surveys maybe limit to a few (2 to 10) per body.

Naturally scenic locations, like canyons, waterfalls should just 'be there' to be discovered as you fly over them.   Some very large and easy to spot, and some less so.

Kerbin has many nice views to discover, but to have them pointed out automatically by the game system like a 'tourist guide, places of interest' (with the probable exception of Kerbin) would seem a bit off.

[Vl3d]

22 minutes ago, pandaman said:

Naturally scenic locations, like canyons, waterfalls should just 'be there' to be discovered as you fly over them.   Some very large and easy to spot, and some less so.

I agree, there's no reason to "scan" for vistas and see them as anomalies on the map. The visual map could just be much more detailed and we could search for interesting places on our own.

As for anomalies as unique objects - there could be levels to the KerbNet II scans (type I, II, III anomalies etc).

[tstein]

10 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

I agree, there's no reason to "scan" for vistas and see them as anomalies on the map. The visual map could just be much more detailed and we could search for interesting places on our own.

As for anomalies as unique objects - there could be levels to the KerbNet II scans (type I, II, III anomalies etc).

I would  find it very interesting in cascade anomalies. I mean  after you land in certain 3 anomalies  the kerbal mathmaticians  points that there is a pattern and you should seek something alike  in the vincinity of (XX,YY) place. That would create some structure and  guideline so things do not look like "just a bucket of places".

[Alexoff]

In general, it would be interesting to see broken and abandoned ships in the game. So that you can fly to them, fill with fuel, repair, charge and use for your needs. Or find a ship with lost technology. Found and received, for example, nuclear engines without much research. Just another pyramid, near which you can only take pictures, is not very interesting. But I am sure that if we get something interactive on the map, it will only be in a paid DLC in 2027.

[SolarAdmiral]

5 hours ago, Vl3d said:

Hahaha, this is the first time I think someone has ever said there's too much stuff to do and see on Kerbin. No one would actually force you to discover everything, it's just something you can do from time to time, between missions, when you're bored. But having this kind of content density would actually make some players not want to leave the planets, to give them motivation to actually start colonies so they have a foothold for exploration. I think that's great!

I don't disagree. Having stuff to go and see and do would be great. But have you ever driven a long distance in KSP?

There is no challenge to driving except your own patience. It's an exercise in fighting boredom. Flying long distances is only slightly better, with a huge danger of crashing when attempting to land. So the best way to do it is build a plane that looks silly landing with parachutes. Or flying a rocket to space just to land somewhere else on the planet and get out to take photos like a tourist which is just a huge waste of resourses so its not really something you'd want to waste your materials on once they're in the game. The safest is sailing, which you can usually put something on the keyboard and walk away.

I'm just wondering if you have ever traveled a long distance over ground.

Just as a test, drive to the white question mark on your map in the mountains north of the KSC. See if you have the time and patience to make it there.

Fly to the little island in the very southwest of the map.

I'd love there to be places of interest. But I don't want to have to fly or drive for literal hours to get to them with no challenge or skill needed. Either there would need to also be some way of crossing the distance quicker, or driving would have to pose some difficulty other than just wasting your time, but I don't really see how either could be easily done.

 

But if somehow KSP could be crossed with Snowrunner, even a little bit, I'd love it.

Maybe if there were special places to get to scattered over the map, with difficult passes or hard to traverse terrain hand built around them for a small ways, like a mini snowrunner map. And you were able to auto fast travel to the edge of this difficult area. Then there'd be a bit of challenge, and you wouldn't have to drive or fly for hours with no danger or challenge to get there.

Edited February 4, 2023 by SolarAdmiral

[tstein]

4 minutes ago, SolarAdmiral said:

I don't disagree. Having stuff to go and see and do would be great. But have you ever driven a long distance in KSP?

There is no challenge to driving except your own patience. It's an exercise in fighting boredom. Flying long distances is only slightly better, with a huge danger of crashing when attempting to land. So the best way to do it is build a plane that looks silly landing with parachutes. Or flying a rocket to space just to land somewhere else on the planet and get out to take photos like a tourist which is just a huge waste of resourses so its not really something you'd want to waste your materials on once they're in the game. The safest is sailing, which you can usually put something on the keyboard and walk away.

I'm just wondering if you have ever traveled a long distance over ground.

Just as a test, drive to the white question mark on your map in the mountains north of the KSC. See if you have the time and patience to make it there.

Fly to the little island in the very southwest of the map.

I'd love there to be places of interest. But I don't want to have to fly or drive for literal hours to get to them with no challenge or skill needed. Either there would need to also be some way of crossing the distance quicker, or driving would have to pose some difficulty other than just wasting your time, but I don't really see how either could be easily done.

That was the reason why some 2 months ago I suggested  some sort of underwater mechanics since finding things  and navigating on a canyon for example would at least keep you awoke. Traveling  in  any place devoid of life will be tedious most of the time and that is a real barrier for exploration, as  any game that gives you a reason to stay AFK  has made some bad decision.

[SolarAdmiral]

28 minutes ago, tstein said:

That was the reason why some 2 months ago I suggested  some sort of underwater mechanics since finding things  and navigating on a canyon for example would at least keep you awoke. Traveling  in  any place devoid of life will be tedious most of the time and that is a real barrier for exploration, as  any game that gives you a reason to stay AFK  has made some bad decision.

Most games aren't really the scale of ksp though. I love exploration games. Besides ksp some of my favorite games are the Outer Wilds, and Subnautica. But their maps are a tiny fraction the size of ksp. The outer wilds whole solar system can fit inside the planet kerbin. Subnauticas map would hardly stretch from the mountains west of the ksc to the island airfield. 

And agreed, I'd love some underwater stuff and submarines in ksp. I really hope they include that.

Ksp planers are just so much larger. If we want to encourage exploration like that and not have everyone give up for being bored, there needs to be some way to cover ground faster. Skip the boring, get to the challenge. Without some way of doing that it's like flying in space without time warp, just staring at the screen and waiting for the mun encounter in ten hours.

 

Just, I'm warning you the map is massive. Do my challenge to you based on that map of yours. Fly to the island in the far southwest and drive to the white question mark in the mountains north of the ksc.

[SolarAdmiral]

So I decided to take my own challenge to see how it goes. Headed from ksc to the closest white question mark not directly in that group, north to the mountains.

I'm currently over 1 hour in, driving stably at x3 time acceleration so 3 hours mission time in game, maybe 1/3 of the way there.

After rounding the bay north of the ksc, I set myself up in the right direction and used a weight and a dice to hold down the w and left. I later remembered trim and set the trim to full down (forward) so it drives itself without weighing down the w key. Free me up to leave and do other stuff only occasionally checking in on it. I maybe check in once every ten minutes. So far so good.

I'd argue anything that requires the player to set and forget, leave the game running and go off to entertain themselves elsewhere, isn't great game design.

 

Maybe the devs could designate "red" and "green" areas on planets. Red areas with challenges and obstacles. Cliffs and mountains, tight passes, crater rims, thick forest, rocky plains. Where driving is difficult enough to be a challenge and interesting. And green areas where the ground is flat enough the rover can drive itself enough you can leave and do other things. Then, allow the player to fast travel warp their vehicles anywhere in adjoining green zones. Forcing them to drive manually across only the red zones.

Or maybe as part of the repeatable transport system, rovers could automatically drive any path you've already driven. So you could set up almost highways, where you drive up to it, then click on the map where on the route you want to drive auto to, so at least you never have to repeat paths.

 

(Approaching an hour and a half in now that I finish writing.)

Edited February 4, 2023 by SolarAdmiral

[pandaman]

I've done a couple of long drives, and many long flights, to locate anomalies.

Whilst a long drive is a bit of a novelty (especially when heading for the Mohole over difficult terrain in the dark) it's not something I would enjoy very often.

[The Aziz]

Gee, I wonder why Opportunity only did 45km in 15 years, and Apollo Lunar Rovers never went further from the lander than 7 or so kilometers.

[SolarAdmiral]

Alright. So I went for 3 hours (7.5 hours in game) 8:25 am to 11:25 am. And I made it to the southern tip of the mountain range. Apart from maybe 10min at the start getting out of the ksc and around the bay, it drove itself with me only making occasional corrections.

I could drive up and around the mountains to get to the actual point but I just don't feel like going any further. And this is like, one of the closer points.

[Vl3d]

Just build a small transport drone, land close, drive the rest of the way. That's the game.

16 minutes ago, SolarAdmiral said:

Alright. So I went for 3 hours (7.5 hours in game) 8:25 am to 11:25 am. And I made it to the southern tip of the mountain range. Apart from maybe 10min at the start getting out of the ksc and around the bay, it drove itself with me only making occasional corrections.

I could drive up and around the mountains to get to the actual point but I just don't feel like going any further. And this is like, one of the closer points.

 

[SolarAdmiral]

46 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

Just build a small transport drone, land close, drive the rest of the way. That's the game.

I mean that's not really the point. So instead build some jet thing to parachute a rover down, exchange 3 hours of driving for maybe 1 hour of flying and 1 hour of driving. And this was a tiny distance, a small fraction of the size of the planet. And now add in the idea you'll be doing this again and again to go in dozens of directions on dozens of planets. It would take tens to hundreds of hours to visit all those spots you marked on kerbin. Multiply by 15 for all the bodies in just the kerbol system. And again by 3 or 4 or 5 for all the systems we will get.

I'd still argue that's more than enough to bore most players. If most players won't bother going to the sites, then the devs don't have a reason to devote much time to making them. We'll wind up with nothing more interesting than the pyramids from ksp1, just in more locations. Just a bunch of static model easter eggs for only the most dedicated completionists look at once and forget. All that gives us is a whole bunch of places it isn't worth bothering to go to.

All I'm saying is if the game wants us to cover larger distances like this, they should look into adding some system to let us cross the wide expanses of nothing faster, to get to the challenging bits, to get to the interesting bits. If they can reliably say lots of players will go to the sites of interest, now they could devote more time into making them unique and interesting. Maybe giving us more to do at them. Now we have a whole bunch of sites lots of players will go to, more interesting things to see and do at them, and not a whole lot of time wasted getting to them.

All I'm asking the game to do is respect the player's time. Not frivolously waste it. KSP2 is already on a great track, aiming to reduce the time spent waiting for long burns being able to warp while burning. It would be silly to improve the gameplay experience in space so much with that while leaving the experience on planets to be still just as boring and tedious as driving an open field for hours or flying level for hours.

[Sp1f]

@SolarAdmiral

If I understand your point correctly, you seem to be saying that KSP2 should not have large numbers of anomalies because exploring them is not your cup of tea. Correct me if I’m wrong. You also seem to be hinting that you would feel compelled to explore all the anomalies that are there.

Personally, I think that there really can’t be too many anomalies. I, for one, enjoy long rover journeys. And I enjoy them more when there are points of interest all over the planet or moon that I can treat as waypoints. Even so, if there were like 80 anomalies on a given body, I would probably never get around to exploring them all, and that’s a good thing. It’s great if there’s always more stuff out there to find. It adds replay value.

For my 2 cents, I am in favor of drastically increasing the number and variety of anomalies. I can see no downside to the idea.

[SolarAdmiral]

5 minutes ago, Sp1f said:

@SolarAdmiral

If I understand your point correctly, you seem to be saying that KSP2 should not have large numbers of anomalies because exploring them is not your cup of tea. Correct me if I’m wrong. You also seem to be hinting that you would feel compelled to explore all the anomalies that are there.

No. I love exploration. What I don't like is hours long travel with no difficulty. What I don't like is getting only a slightly interesting item to look at for all that effort.

I mean, if they want to quickly plop down a bunch of copy paste pyramids and monoliths around kerbin, I don't mind. But that doesn't interest me in driving or flying for hours to go see them. If that's what they do with the game that's fine, but I'd just ignore it and I suspect that most people would ignore it too. What started the discussion was the map shared in the first post of this thread. Look at all those points and tell me how long it would take to visit even a handful of them. And almost all of that time would be spent driving over grassy fields or flying level with no challenge. You could set the game to play itself and walk away, as I did this morning for three hours to cross only a tiny distance of the map.

What I'm advocating for, is if there's going to be sites of interest for exploring, make them worthwhile and challenging rather than just a waste of time and test of patience like ksp1.

If there are going to be lots of anomalies, I'd prefer them to be widely varied, each made interesting or challenging to get to. 

But this would however mean a lot of dev time put into them. So, to justify that time and resource devoted to developing them, they need to be something lots of players will partake in.

Take a look at some good exploration games. Subnautica, Outer Wilds, Snowrunner even. Love those games. But there's a challenge to apply that kind of exploring to ksp. Ksps planets are huge, so much larger than those games little maps.

 

 

So my suggestion. What if the sites of interest were hand made by the devs. Each one having something neat to see. And each one with a bit of a challenge to get to. Something similar to those games listed above.

There could be a tight underwater canyon to maneuver a submarine through. There could be a narrow rocky pass to drive a rover through. There could be a narrow ledge to land a plane on. There could be a snaky winding switchback up a mountainside.

But the key is, to limit the amount of the players time wasted getting to those challenges and points of interest. Which is why I suggest a means of fast traveling over the wide open land where you'd only be watching as you hold down the w key. Or watching a plane fly level needing no adjustment.

Then we could have interesting things to do and see. Something with more challenge than just waiting to get there. And by making it not take hours many more players could go do it, justifying the extra time and effort that would be required making these areas.

 

 

That would be interesting to me. To me there's a difference between exploring and getting a plane in the air and flying it level on SAS for hours. Exploring is venturing though the caverns of Ember Twin as they fill with sand. Exploring is diving your Cyclops down into the dark void and maneuvering around pillars of rock or tight passages. Exploring is getting a truck stuck in the swamp or trying to squeeze a twinsteer through some trees. I don't really consider flying a plane level for hours, something that could be achieved by an autopilot, all that much exploration. KSP1 did have some good "exploring" content, but that was in space with the rockets, getting to and returning from all the planets and moons. I'd love there to be exploration and lots of sites to go visit in KSP2 to match that feeling of exploration in space between the planets with some interesting and challenging exploration on the planets.

I just don't agree that what KSP1 had on kerbin was really "exploring". All it was was taking off a plane and flying it straight for a while, sometimes a long time.

 

There's only so much time in the day between work and chores and everything else. If you can set aside a few hours a night to play a game, why not make those hours count. Rather than requiring nothing more than the player flying straight and level for all those few precious free hours.