What do you expect from the Science Update?

[GGG-GoodGuyGreg]

My heart and wallet expects a lot, but my brain says it most likely will be a placeholder of things to come, I think one or few parts of science gathering from all tiers, and some very early science related mechanics that might wear off fast and won’t immediately bring a lot of players back and keep them playing.

Therefore I think it’s too early in a couple of months for the game to have a miraculous recovery, so we’re still in for some suspense.

[Lyneira]

I expect at least a "weird bulbous thing that performs an experiment and I need to build a rocket around it!"

And less thermometers we stick on command pods.

Edited May 4, 2023 by Lyneira

[WelshSteW]

The bare minimum would be an anomoly detector, just to help guide exploration a little bit.

[Scarecrow71]

At a minimum, I'd expect the major game-breaking bugs to be fixed.  Like, what's the point of trying to go get Science on, say, Tylo, if you can't even plan a return trip due to the trajectory bug?  Or why bother going back to the Mun if you have no orbital lines, or if your craft sinks through the surface of the planet?  And forget those major ships you wanna build when the kraken eats things for no reason AND we have performance issues.  These all need to be fixed at a minimum before they implement science.

4 hours ago, Lyneira said:

And less thermometers we stick on command pods.

I might be in the minority here, but I like slapping thermometers on command pods.  What I don't understand is why probes can't do crew reports.  A crew report is, essentially, a report of what is happening in your surroundings.  Are you telling me a probe can't do a scan of the surrounding area and give a report on what's happening?

[regex]

Hopefully something more interesting than KSP1's "right-click receive reward" gameplay. Not too thrilled by what I've heard so far tbh, sounds like part contracts from KSP1 rebranded as science.

[AtomicTech]

52 minutes ago, regex said:

Hopefully something more interesting than KSP1's "right-click receive reward" gameplay. Not too thrilled by what I've heard so far tbh, sounds like part contracts from KSP1 rebranded as science.

That'd be boring; I always hated those contracts.

[Sea_Kerman]

I definitely want less “right-click-receive-science”. I think Scansat does this well.

[Superfluous J]

3 hours ago, regex said:

sounds like part contracts from KSP1 rebranded as science.

As someone who tried to shoehorn that exact thing into KSP1 with a mod made to my skill level (poor to non-existent) this sounds great to me.

[razark]

I expect nothing.

That way, anything that arrives is better than what I expected.

 

 

What I actually expect is a knock-off of the KSP system.

[Scarecrow71]

5 hours ago, razark said:

What I actually expect is a knock-off of the KSP system.

They couldn't even give us that for EA.  What makes you think they can give us this with Science?

Edited May 4, 2023 by Scarecrow71

[razark]

7 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

They couldn't even give us that for EA.  What makes you think they can give us this with Science?

When all else fails:

5 hours ago, razark said:

I expect nothing.

That way, anything that arrives is better than what I expected.

I'm only half joking here.  I've not spent my time anticipating anything.  Whatever they give us is above the nothing that I'd be content to walk away with now.  If the whole thing gets cancelled tomorrow, I lose nothing.  My life will be no different than it was before.  Aside from the $50 and the time I've spent on a game that I've already gotten some entertainment from, I've lost nothing that isn't already spent.

It's a video game that I might get to play a decent version of some day.  Or I might not.  Whoop-dee-doo, life goes on.

[Turbo Ben]

What am I expecting from the science update?

Bugs.

Lots of bugs.

[Wheehaw Kerman]

On 5/4/2023 at 7:53 PM, razark said:

When all else fails:

I'm only half joking here.  I've not spent my time anticipating anything.  Whatever they give us is above the nothing that I'd be content to walk away with now.  If the whole thing gets cancelled tomorrow, I lose nothing.  My life will be no different than it was before.  Aside from the $50 and the time I've spent on a game that I've already gotten some entertainment from, I've lost nothing that isn't already spent.

It's a video game that I might get to play a decent version of some day.  Or I might not.  Whoop-dee-doo, life goes on.

Good lord.  A sane, healthy, unentitled, adult attitude towards EA.

This is the way.

[K^2]

As much as I really hope that science in KSP2 is nothing like "Stick a thermometer, a barometer, a seismometer, a gravitoli detector, and a can of goo on a ship, then go to every biome and click on them one by one," or worse yet, "Drive around KSC touching buildings and clicking on instruments one by one," I do actually hope that the instruments themselves stay. Well, not necessarily the silly ones, like the green goo. But a working thermometer and barometer would be welcome. Especially if we can eventually use these as input axes in automation. Why we couldn't in Breaking Ground, I have no clue. It'd be so much easier to build automatic guidance for rockets in vanilla KSP if I could feed the KAL 1000 the barometer data...

But I digress. I just hope we get the instruments anyways, even if they aren't involved in science directly. And I hope the science system can at least clear the low, low bar of "Better than KSP."

Edited May 7, 2023 by K^2

[cocoscacao]

Well, at least some level of automation. It would be nice if we don't have to click on every blasted thing to get readouts, and then send kerbals to collect them one by one. That's boring. 

Also some innovation would be nice, for example, a scientist kerbal required to operate a piece of equipment.

[RocketRockington]

I'd like enough procedural randomization to offer good replayability.  That and something more like Kerbalism,.ideally leveraging resources or the colonies to extend the variety.  I'm concerned that science is coming out standalone, but that's the world we're in with their roadmap.

Either the first version will be lesser by not involving the other game loops - or we're still going to be in another wait-and-see limbo as Intercept tells us that the science system, even once released, is still placeholder and 'just wait some more, promise, it'll be better in the future'. 

So I guess I hope it's just one good concrete feature by itself, even if it would have been better to leverage other game elements.

[Strawberry]

Personally I think the experiments themselves will be good, the design changes we have seen so far (such as hydrogen fuel, Vector nerf, xenon thrust nerf) have been good. Im hoping there will be some nice science cost changes as well, the whole aerodynamics tree in ksp1 is way too overpriced. The things Im iffy about are the missions for science as the ones we've heard of so far are just head to x place and that seems eh, and also Im unsure how many parts we'll get. Im hoping for new engines (honestly I know they said no hydrolox engines in the past, but I think theyll introduce hydrolox tanks anyways in ksp2 and I think itll fit), but I dont know if we'll get much.

 

[Nicrose]

Definitely keeping my hopes in check as I don't want to get disappointed but I know for sure that I'd like some sort of parts that are bigger than the last game. Something that presents a challenge other than just remembering. 

[Ferio]

short answer; Nothing

I don't want to be disappointed again.

[theJesuit]

A different styled tree.  The possibility of modding it.

[dr.phees]

Actually I expect lots of new bugs, a cheap copy of KSP 1's science system, a bad science tree (probably the same as KSP 1 again).

If they care, there should be a proper system like Scansat, a good science tree with a couple of starting points (a ground based route (wheels etc.), a plane based route (wings, landing gear), a rocket route. Maybe you could also select your playstyle at start (manned/unmanned).

Science should not just be a 'been there' thing, maybe some quests to look for various surface rocks, so have to drive around a bit and search for stuff, maybe have a cool gadget like a spectrometer integrated to make finding weird rocks easier!

Some science could also be done in various day/night scenarios, making a thermometer only fully effective when it has run a day/night cycle etc.

Innovative science gameplay would be a huge thing. But, as I said, it will probably also just be a copy of KSP 1. So, I don't expect much and keep playing KSP 1 with ScanSat

[Sea_Kerman]

+1 on Scansat and other science “diegetic minigame” type stuff.

[Lyneira]

On 5/9/2023 at 11:14 AM, dr.phees said:

Science should not just be a 'been there' thing, maybe some quests to look for various surface rocks, so have to drive around a bit and search for stuff, maybe have a cool gadget like a spectrometer integrated to make finding weird rocks easier!

Speaking of surface rocks, this is more of a suggestion than an expectation, but as a former Elite: Dangerous player that spent a lot of time driving the Scarab SRV I can't pass it up to mention this thought:

Roving around the various worlds (especially airless ones) looking for meteorites or outcrops to scan or sample. In Elite: Dangerous, you had a wave scanner that would give you a signal based on a rock's composition and your distance to it. The signal would become clearer and narrower as you got closer to it. These meteorites and outcrops could be procedurally scattered across the surface and have different compositions, allowing the player to tangentially learn something about real ones when they succeed in finding and sampling one.

Edited May 10, 2023 by Lyneira

[MagicCuboid]

Expect? I don't know. Based on dev updates, science experiments will be more like payloads, which seems fun.

What I hope for is that science will take time, EC, and comm signal strength to actually execute. Something similar to Kerbalism's science system, but maybe minus the hard drive stuff in favor of just slots. This, of course, would necessitate a planning UI overhaul in the VAB to estimate signal strength and EC generation, which seems unlikely...

[Scarecrow71]

One thing I really hope to see is the removal of losing Science points (or whatever they are going to be in KSP2) simply because you transmitted the results of the experiment back to Kerbin.  Like, what exactly changes that you lose information?  "Well, the temperature out here is 70, but they may not understand that when we radio that back"?

I'd also like to see long-term experimentation be available, to the degree that you discover more about a location the longer you are there.  For example, say you go to Eve and you do a temperature reading.  Then you do a pressure reading.  After some time, you start to realize that certain pressure readings exist at certain temperature readings, which allows you to now do weather experiments.  After doing so many weather experiments, you start to understand weather patterns and can plan for other experiments that may or may not depend on certain conditions.  Again, a very basic progression/example here, but you should be able to take my meaning.