Should KSP be a little more serious about itself in-game?

[MakaRonnie]

Does anyone else think that the in-game level of seriousness or severity for things like crashing or just kerbals dying in general is not as strong as in ksp1? This is not trying to be a negative post, I'm just saying that on ksp1 crashing felt almost tragic when attempting a real mission, however on ksp2 the game immediately shows you a fun little quip and basically pats you on the back for essentially a complete mission failure. I'd like it if there was a way to toggle that on or off, because I know others might enjoy it more over just dead silence before the mission report pop-up, but hey, what does everyone else think? 

[moeggz]

I like Kerbals as competent and driven engineers who try and try again until success. Their little quirks and silliness are nice, but I agree with you i wish the missions were treated a little more seriously.

I usually played with perma death, and hope that is still an option, but I think most want a happy game with Kerbals not being mortal and sad, and think that should be the default.

[MakaRonnie]

2 hours ago, moeggz said:

I like Kerbals as competent and driven engineers who try and try again until success. Their little quirks and silliness are nice, but I agree with you i wish the missions were treated a little more seriously.

I usually played with perma death, and hope that is still an option, but I think most want a happy game with Kerbals not being mortal and sad, and think that should be the default.

I agree that they are very silly by nature and that is what makes Kerbal Kerbal and not just "average space sim", but it would be nice as an accessibility feature!

[shdwlrd]

If you're referring to the tutorial screens when you land (crash?) You should be able to turn those off when you start a new save. (Maybe also in your current save, never looked.)

They are there to help you not feel bad about crashing and to offer "training" to help you not do it again.

Also, who knows how Kerbals deal with death.

[Stewcooker]

So I can definitely see why Kerbal takes the path that it does, in regards to seriousness. And in game philosophy choices as well. For example, I think Kerbal does an exceptionally good job of getting the best of the Sim world and the goofy fun game world. Go too far in either direction and you lose fans on the other side completely. For me, I love playing KSP with mods like RP-1 and Kerbalism and it irks me that kerbals aren't human-sized and that Kerbin isn't Earth-sized, but I'm probably in the minority and then again, mods. 

TLDR: I  personally feel like Kerbal gets the balance of the two quite nearly just right.

[VlonaldKerman]

Personally, I’m a huge fan of when games don’t tell you how to feel, but leave the reaction to in-game occurrences to the player. In KSP 1, as you mentioned, the player gets to interpret/generate their own lore for who Kerbals are, what Kerbal society is like, how tragic is Kerbal death, etc.

I think you will find this “show, don’t tell” attitude in a lot of god-tier games, especially simulation/non-story ones (Minecraft comes to mind).

In other words, I agree.

 

EDIT: Subnautica is another game which does an incredible job of this.

Edited August 21, 2023 by VlonaldKerman

[K33N]

Although I haven't played a ton of KSP2 yet I didn't notice any large difference, especially since its just sandbox and death doesn't matter anyway.

[PDCWolf]

Yes, definitely, and not just a little.

There's 2 things that are pretty much the main drivers of our pace in exploring space: Safety and cost. KSP2 fails hard at portraying either:

• You kill kerbals? here's more, you can even set them to respawn after a while.
• Leave them stranded or put them unattended on centuries long missions? no issue.
• Uncommunicated and cramped? no worries.
• Orbiting the sun with a window to check outside? just close your eyes lol.
• High radiation orbits? not a dent in that DNA.
• Badly designed rocket? you can bruteforce anything into anywhere, save for wobbly stuff (unless you have the supercomputer required to simulate the needed amount of struts).
• Wanna set down a colony on the sun? just add more radiators.
• Coming back from the mun? just dive straight into the atmosphere.
• Wanna make a spaceplane? Here's the most overpowered, unbalanced jet engines ever to feature in a videogame.

I could go on, but really the only challenges remaining are physics and piloting. A bit of googling (or the new tutorials) solves the former, and worst case scenario mechjeb solves the later. Add to that the fact that the current state of the game is just an incomplete KSP1 alpha remaster and the returning player experience is pretty much dead unless you really like to torture your computer or telling yourself that you're somehow playing a better game.

 

[Vanamonde]

This discussion of the game's development has been moved to Development Discussions. 

[Vl3d]

I've always said that the location of the death of every Kerbal should be marked with a little grave stone and map symbol. Remembering the sacrifices of kerbals for the progress of the space program is a core game element. I still have strong memories about the time when Jeb and Bill suffocated 2 days before Kerbin reentry after a heroic Duna mission. The capsule brought them back in one piece.

Edited August 27, 2023 by Vl3d

[pandaman]

6 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

I've always said that the location of the death of every Kerbal should be marked with a little grave stone and map symbol. Remembering the sacrifices of kerbals for the progress of the space program is a core game element. I still have strong memories about the time when Jeb and Bill suffocated 2 days before Kerbin reentry after a heroic Duna mission. The capsule brought them back in one piece.

Hmm .  That could work as a toggled option.  But the marker couldn't be too elaborate or the graphics performance would take a serious hit. 

[RalphKerman]

I think the "funny" messages that pop up when failing a mission were created with a new and fresh audience in mind (for whom maybe the tutorials were also made in this very comical-like style). Personally it does not really bother me what kind of message pops up when a craft is destroyed and you are about to hit the "revert to ...." button for the 100th time to tweak something to make your craft work.

KSP (1 and 2) can be played in a "serious" way with real goals of orbital flight in mind and with the intention to learn new stuff, experiment and get enjoyment from that or just in a totally over-the-top crazy silly way by making any sort of ridiculous contraption and get enjoyment from that.

So I don't mind what message pops up (no one reads them anyway after the 10th time....). It's all in the player's head and his/her imagination how "serious" this current situation is.

Unrealistic scenarios (as mentioned by PDCWolf a few posts up)? I don't care either. I like the "freedom" to do that kind of stuff. If I want to dive more or less straight down from the Mun to Kerbin, why not? Orbiting the sun in a craft with windows, yeah, why not, if I want my craft to have windows? That's just freedom and nobody "has to do" these kind of things, you can work out a smooth re-entry curve, build an (imaginary) fully-shielded craft to orbit the sun, whatever makes the player happy. And the "seriousness" can be added via mods. I guess no one who plays KSP 1 with all the RSS/RP-1 stuff (and whatever all those realism mods are called) is complaining that the game does not take things serious. There will hopefully be a time when KSP 2 reaches that state where all those mods become available and then the quesion is a non-issue anyway. But for now the level of "seriousness" does not really matter and if the light-hearted tone it uses right now helps attracting a few new players, all the better (unfortunately new players will leave the game at the current level of quality very quickly).

What I really DON'T LIKE however: Ingame over-sized messages that state VERY obvious facts and can't be switched off yet (without mods). I don't want to be notified EVERY TIME that my solar panels don't produce any EC because I enter the shadow of a planet or any time I do EVA I don't need a message pop-up to tell me that my craft is no longer controlable. I really hope they will implement a switch for all these notifications to turn them off or only keep them enabled if "new player experiecne" is chosen.

[AtomicTech]

On 8/21/2023 at 11:35 AM, PDCWolf said:

Wanna make a spaceplane? Here's the most overpowered, unbalanced jet engines ever to feature in a videogame.