End game content?

[CiberX15]

Ok so I know this is quite a bit early but I wanted to start a discussion about what end game content might look like for KSP 2.

I’m the kind of player who needs the game to provide me with goals to stay interested.

However, in KSP 1 I usually played on science mode because the missions in KSP 1 weren’t super fun. There were a few milestone missions like Reach Duna, or task missions like Rescue This Kerbal who got stuck in orbit. But for the most part they felt tedious, like reaching this highly specific orbit, or flying your plane for about seven hours in real time to take the temperature at a specific altitude. 

On the other hand, just playing on science mode I tended to set out with the goal of reaching some distant planet I’d never reached before, but by the time I unlocked all the tech to get there, there no longer felt like there was much reason to go, since I’d already completed the tech tree. Plus getting to that point required about a hundred plus very similar launches from the same launch pad.

Already I think there’s been a lot of talk about improving career mode so the missions aren’t so tedious. But I also want to hear what other driving forces might push us to continue to explore, even if we’ve unlocked all the tech?

Some of that could just be simply improving time warp, or adding autopilot (presumably as an unlock in the tech tree), to generally reduce the tedium. If I can prove a plane can fly then time warp/autopilot it to a given location, that’s much less tedious then having to fly the entire mission in real time.

Similarly I expect orbital construction will reduce a lot of tedium, since you can launch closer to your destination. Whether that’s making an interplanetary leap from Kerbin to Duna, or landing shuttles on Duna from an orbital base, not having to start every mission from the Kerbin launch pad will definitely reduce tedium, and make it easier to break the more ambitious missions into smaller more achievable chunks. Honestly this is one of the biggest reasons I’ve been excited for KSP 2 in the first place.

So yeah! This might actually be a problem that’s already solved on paper. I just haven’t seen it yet since those features aren’t implemented.

Thoughts? Ideas? 
 

[Socraticat]

I always enjoyed setting up fuel routes so that I could send Kerbals further and further in an SSTO. It's my favorite. You can do it in Sandbox, Science, or Career.

The console version of KSP has a Mun launchpad option- I found that to be super rewarding and I was sad it wasn't a part of vanilla KSP on PC. At about the same time they had announced KSP2 (I remember Parallax Mod was about to come out too). My PC at the time was a laptop, so I was very limited in performance. I decided to wait for cololnies in KSP2 and get a nice computer in the meantime.

Since then I've been practicing all aspects of my supply chain method: SSTO design, Mining, Stations, Comms, Etc. It feels like a larger Arc than KSP is capable of providing in a script, nor do I think I would like it that way. One of the things that keeps me in KSP is the ability to uniquely tailor the game experience in the same way you can tweak a ship- The all do the same thing, but it's how you do it that makes it fun for you. I suppose the basic script of "Rocket Science and Extraplanetary Exploration" is good enough for me. Beyond that it's basically roleplay as a "Space Program".

Having said all that, I do think they have all of that down on paper, but clearly not in code tight enough to share (or maybe it is good enough to share, just not on top of what's currently ailing the game). Everything that KSP2 promises seems to me geared towards that play progression. I'm also into the tedium though; I guess it offers me an opportunity to continue experimenting for optimization, quality of life, or style.

I guess don't really play for an endgame. I play until I decide I want to rewrite my career from the ground up with knowledge gained. Doubly so for KSP2  since persistent saves are non-playable until later implementations.

It's also not incorrect to say that my current endgame is forum challenges- once completed I move on to another one, like contracts IRL.

[RevanX_LSR]

The main way to obtain money late game for me is resource harvesting. Hopefully that will be better implemented in Ksp2.

[Barrackar]

The Devs spoke a little bit about this. From what I remember they said: (1) there is no money/funds, but there will be resources including rare resources that can only be found in unique locations. (2) There will be automatic routes where you fly the mission once collecting or delivering something and it repeats.

I infer getting to late-game will involve exploring different places to gain access to all the resources and also optimizing designs for more efficient automatic routes. I see a lot of interesting design iteration possibilities with that and it will allow increased reasons to design rovers, boats, and planes for local exploration of a planet/moon.

The Devs have said KSP2 will most resemble science-mode because funds will not exist.

[dr.phees]

On 8/5/2023 at 11:51 PM, CiberX15 said:

However, in KSP 1 I usually played on science mode because the missions in KSP 1 weren’t super fun. There were a few milestone missions like Reach Duna, or task missions like Rescue This Kerbal who got stuck in orbit. But for the most part they felt tedious, like reaching this highly specific orbit, or flying your plane for about seven hours in real time to take the temperature at a specific altitude. 

I always thought it would be nice to be able to play these missions if you wanted, but not to gather money for further playing.

A good way would be for specific mission types to act as proof-of-concept milestones for other such contracts. You could decide to set each unlocked mission type to "automatic" and it would unlock that level of cost for later rockets, in the sense of: You were able to run a profitable mission with a rocket that cost [this much], so we will fund any future rockets of that cost, no question asked. The idea behind this is, that we are the designers of new vehicles and try the new stuff. Someone else is running similar missions with the craft we provided without us having to know, producing these vehicles for profit and we only have to fund further development. One could even opt for some monthly income to our budget, but that might collide with fast-forwarding. I would be fine for money/earnings to just expand our mission cost envelope.

Every mission type could have escalation steps: (rescue from Kerbin orbit, Mun orbit, Minmus, Eve...)

Another way to expand your budget could be to set a mission type, that you would be willing to do:

Landing & return operation on Eve would give you a couple of generated missions: A rescue mission, a sample return mission etc., while orbital mapping operations on gas giants would give you exactly that. Maybe including some high-profit/high-risk mission like a low orbit mapping while within a planet's athmosphere or very low down, pushing you into dipping into a gas giant's athmosphere if just for a very short moment, etc.

So, to make it short:

You have a vehicle budget and you play missions to expand that budget. If your mission is successful, your approved budget is raised. If you mission is profitable, your budget is raised even more. From then on you may repeat that kind of mission to get more profitable in that mission profile/type. You can simply browse mission by type and set them to not bother you anymore.

Why?

It removes grinding, but still incentivizes you for profitable missions and cost saving. And it adds a new thing: Competing with yourself for more profitable mission setups.

Why at all?

Not having money/budget in a Space Program game simply does not make sense! Budget makes you go for efficiency, which can be a very driving factor behind designing good ships. Just slapping many tanks on and adding power is boring once you can build huge rockets. Science and budget are the way to go, but not in KSP1 style.

Edited August 7, 2023 by dr.phees

[cocoscacao]

32 minutes ago, dr.phees said:

Not having money/budget in a Space Program game simply does not make sense

We're still in the dark how resources effect things. Maybe we won't have enough fuel available to add too many tanks/boosters... Dunno. I do like having some restrictions, but the more I play, the more I enjoy restrictions that I put myself.

[oro]

In my opinion, the primary issue concerning science in KSP1 is the limited size of the tech tree. After a certain stage, you accumulate a significant amount of science without a clear direction for its utilization. A valuable enhancement could involve implementing a small tech tree for individual parts, each offering enhancements to specific characteristics.  For example, consider an engine upgrade that requires a certain amount of science investment and provides benefits like a 2% increase in thrust or a reduction in weight, and so on.

[dr.phees]

22 hours ago, cocoscacao said:

We're still in the dark how resources effect things. Maybe we won't have enough fuel available to add too many tanks/boosters... Dunno. I do like having some restrictions, but the more I play, the more I enjoy restrictions that I put myself.

Sure. But such limitations would only lead to grinding. My expandable budget idea would allow proper progress.

While you could do that with fuel availability, or any other resource (but it would probably feel a bit ham-fisted), you still would have the situation, that at some point you will simply be swimming in resources. My budgetary approach would still give you limitations that will force you to properly design vehicles.

[cocoscacao]

1 hour ago, dr.phees said:

you still would have the situation, that at some point you will simply be swimming in resources

Sure. I think that's a good thing. Prove that you can design efficient rocket that can reach destination X first time, after that, go wild with bizarre creations. Rinse and repeat for the next destination.

[dr.phees]

That also works with my suggestion, but you would still have to push the budget envelope from time to time. There might be a way to finish enough missions / milestone missions to unlock an unlimited budget for your personal endgame.

I really think that resource gathering, especially with the mentioned automation in mind, is a poor idea in a game with time-warp. The budget way would be much more game-play fitting, in my mind.

[Superfluous J]

I think we need some beginning game content before we worry about end game content.

[CiberX15]

8 hours ago, Superfluous J said:

I think we need some beginning game content before we worry about end game content.

Well yes... 

Honestly I keep modding the heck out of KSP 1 to try to make it as close to the KSP 2 experience I'm hoping for. Right now I just can't stick to KSP 2 for more than an hour or two without running into some game breaking bug that ruins the experience. And on the rare occasions I can work around issues it just doesn't hold my interest since it's just a sandbox right now.

And yet every time I see an update I jump back in to see how much things have improved. I'm still optimistic about the game, I'm just not going to hold my breath waiting for it.

[Bej Kerman]

8 hours ago, CiberX15 said:

Right now I just can't stick to KSP 2 for more than an hour or two without running into some game breaking bug that ruins the experience

On the upside, worse happens in modded KSP 1, and in KSP 1 there's no dedicated dev team to fix screwups caused by cramming 50 independently developed things into the same package.

[VlonaldKerman]

2 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

On the upside, worse happens in modded KSP 1,

That is debatable.

2 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

and in KSP 1 there's no dedicated dev team to fix screwups caused by cramming 50 independently developed things into the same package.

Jeb Kerman from the top of a 10m high rocket that still wobbles uncontrollably: “Yes, and thank god for that!”

[Royalswissarmyknife]

6 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

On the upside, worse happens in modded KSP 1, and in KSP 1 there's no dedicated dev team to fix screwups caused by cramming 50 independently developed things into the same package.

Ah yes 100% true no flaws whatsoever!

Now explain why I can use the same save for a year in Modded Ksp-1 but after 2 weeks in Ksp-2 I cant?

[CiberX15]

9 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

On the upside, worse happens in modded KSP 1

Yeah I hate to jump on the bandwagon but I'm also in disagreement here. Heavily modded KSP is currently far more stable and playable than stock KSP 2. 

In my current modded KSP 1 game I've flown multiple flights to Minums, one flight to the orbit of the sun and back, and built an space station around Kerbin capable of fabricating new ships in space using the Simple Construction mod. I've built ships in orbit, sent them on trips to other planetary bodies, then landed them back on Kerbin. I have about 16 hours of playtime in this save with no signs of stopping.

I'm playing with Mods for mouse control flight, automatic science collection, Kerbal attachment system for attaching new parts in real time, Kerbal Engineer, Mech Jeb for autopilot, Scan Sat for finding ore deposits ( a mod that complains every time I launch it, that it is out of date and will most likely cause errors), and of course Simple Construction, which is a updated version of Extraplanetary Launchpads, that I have further tinkered with to make building ships faster and cheaper. Over the course of this save I've added new mods, and altered the configs with multiple flights in progress. There is every reason for my current game to be an unplayable mess, and yet I haven't had any game breaking bugs. Or even any notable bugs at all other then the one crash I caused when I added a typo in the configs, which was gracefully recovered from.

In my most recent stock KSP 2 game I build a space plane, launched it, and the wings fell of immediately. Then I strutted it together as a workaround and tried again, and in my arrogance I also tried to add a rocket stage. This time it didn't fall apart until I staged the boosters away, at which point every part of the ship slowly drifted apart from each other while still flying. I got a total of 3 hours play time in that save before giving up and 2 of those hours were spent collecting data to submit bug reports. 

The most I've ever been able to do in KSP 2 is land on the Mun once, and that was a close call because I had to load a quick-save at least five times before I won the lottery and my ship _didn't_ disassemble itself when it entered the Mun's sphere of influence, or stage the drive segment, or open the landing gear.

Right now I jump on KSP 2 every update because I have a deep love of the franchise and want it to succeed, but so far my experience has mostly been playing QA Tester rather than enjoying the game.

Edited August 10, 2023 by CiberX15

[VlonaldKerman]

In my newest modded save with ~25 hours, I have something like 95 mods. There are a couple of regular bugs, but it’s like, stuttering for 10 secs and there are ways around them.

Among my mods is galaxies unbound, which is awesome but kills the frame rate. That said, even my killed frame rate in KSP 1 is higher than my cremated frame rate in KSP 2.

[Bej Kerman]

5 hours ago, Royalswissarmyknife said:

Now explain why I can use the same save for a year in Modded Ksp-1

That is debatable. 

2 hours ago, CiberX15 said:

Yeah I hate to jump on the bandwagon

You described it better than I could have.