Progressively better visuals for probe to manned scientific exploration

[Vl3d]

This is not a new idea, but I really think it's important for creating incentives to explore and rewarding the player for making progress. IMO it would improve gameplay if everything would not be revealed to the first low-tech probe missions and the image quality for telescopes / cameras / free-view would progressively change from grainy black & white / sepia / VHS etc. effects to beautiful natural images when seen during a manned mission. I'm really curious about your opinions.

Inspired by the Hullcam and MovieTime KSP1 mods (and real life).

Edited August 29, 2023 by Vl3d

[Pthigrivi]

This is interesting. While for me the first two are probably better as mods I do like the last one as part of the discovery mechanic, with planets being fuzzy colored spheres until you unlocked more info about them. Right now there isn’t much actual gameplay distinction but over time as biomes and resources are added Id like so see this discovery process go deeper enabling more useful overlay maps. 

[gluckez]

I very much like this idea, it adds to the immersion imo. But I also think there should be a setting to disable it if you're not interested in that.

[Stephensan]

like the idea, i also would love to see this with telescopes if science adds that.. so you DON'T know what planets are out there and where they are at unless you have physically seen it, then it progresses to make more accurate how big it is, etc.

[cocoscacao]

I guess planets from other star systems should just be a black spheres, until reached.

[gluckez]

3 minutes ago, Stephensan said:

like the idea, i also would love to see this with telescopes if science adds that..

exactly, ksp1 had something similar with asteroids, so something like that would be really cool.

[PDCWolf]

I voted No on all 3:

For the first one, I don't think camera artifacts correctly communicate the stuff they should. Based on KSP1, you'll still be using the same probe cores near the beginning and at the end of the tech tree, so unless there's a clear visual evolution of the probe cores communicated, there's no way to tell the player that camera tech got better unless you specifically go out of your way to do so.

As for the second, it's been said before that the point of map view is to be a tool, and that (back in KSP1) they didn't want players flying the ship entirely on map view. I agree with this. Flying with hull-cameras only requires a lot of work regarding orientation of those to be useful, way beyond the abilities of a new player. Even if you did that work for them automagically, flying first person can be a bit overwhelming and creates a lot of failure points for the entire experience (part of why airlines have control surface status displays on the cockpit, among a lot of other instruments, for example). It also makes extremely hard to communicate bad design choices and their consequences to the player.

As for telescopes... I don't think it adds much. Telescope gameplay was never interesting to me in the prequel, don't see that changing.

 

[MechBFP]

While I like the idea of B&W, grainy images, etc, I feel that type of mechanic is better suited towards genres of games that are generally “once and done”, like adventure games. 
Once you see the planet in game for the first time that type of mechanic is essentially worthless to the player for all other play throughs to that same location. 

[Vl3d]

18 minutes ago, MechBFP said:

While I like the idea of B&W, grainy images, etc, I feel that type of mechanic is better suited towards genres of games that are generally “once and done”, like adventure games. 
Once you see the planet in game for the first time that type of mechanic is essentially worthless to the player for all other play throughs to that same location. 

That's a good argument, but still there should be extra incentive to send a manned mission. I think that seeing everything at the max visual quality while landing a cheap probe takes away from the impressive experience of landing a crewed mission and seeing the planet in all it's glory. I for one think that the low-tech probes should not spoil the environment visuals from the first encounter.

[Sylvi Fisthaug]

I'm all for this, if its difficulty options. Not if it's the only option (except the telescope one)

Also a really good idea for a mod! 

[The Aziz]

I've read identical thread before.

 

[Vl3d]

1 hour ago, The Aziz said:

I've read identical thread before.

That's because you're old.

[Pthigrivi]

Yeah Im happy to see a bit more creative, forward thinking put in even to ideas that have been run through many times in the past. KSP2 is a new game and I bet not everything is exactly set in stone yet. Fresh looks are good. 

[RocketRockington]

This would make some sense for a game that was about realism or had the player sending probes first instead of manned everything.

That wasn't KSP1 and is extra not KSP2.  Just doesn't fit, though it sounds like a decent feature for a mod.

[Sea_Kerman]

It would be cool if the planet surfaces filled in fog-of-war like with various levels of detail as you Scansat the surface (Scansat mechanics pls), then get better images of specific areas from your lander’s cameras/kerbonauts’ eyes

[MechBFP]

14 minutes ago, Sea_Kerman said:

It would be cool if the planet surfaces filled in fog-of-war like with various levels of detail as you Scansat the surface (Scansat mechanics pls), then get better images of specific areas from your lander’s cameras/kerbonauts’ eyes

I do like this idea. That way the camera isn’t some omnipotent entity. 

[Alpha_star]

Yeah……Again, a great idea for science, but I'd personally like it to be in the difficulty settings as this allows us users to adjust and tweak things. One possible but unlikely idea is to have the image quality to slowly drop as the communication to Kerbin gets weaker.

However, this does create some problems as the inabilities to visually monitor the craft's in-flight state, maybe add additional camera parts all over the ship?

[Vl3d]

17 minutes ago, Alpha_star said:

One possible but unlikely idea is to have the image quality to slowly drop as the communication to Kerbin gets weaker.

Some visual effects of static on screen when signal is low could be cool. The point is to communicate mission state in a more intuitive way, give the feeling of tech progression and also inventivise the player to come back for more exploration rewards.

[Periple]

With the possible exception of (3) I think this is one of those ideas that sound good on paper but won’t be fun in practice.

First, it assumes probes before crews. This may not be the case, it certainly isn’t in KSP1.

Second, it disincentivizes use of probes. If there isn’t some other really good reason to use them, it might make them just unambiguously worse in which case most players wouldn’t bother. 

Third, assuming the tech tree has been revamped so probes are a necessary step before crews, it inverts the difficulty curve. New players will have to deal with limited cameras; this could make landing and docking seriously difficult.

Finally, “low-fi FX” in general are tiring to the eyes and UX in general. They can work well in small doses — hence the possible exception for (3) — but I’m pretty certain that only very few players would find it enjoyable to look at a pixelated or grainy picture on a mission that takes several hours.

So yeah no, I don’t think this idea will fly!

[Lyneira]

I voted no on all three but I will say that in science and exploration modes, I would support the idea of starting out with limited knowledge about the Kerbol system, meaning the map view and tracking station show only vague details on bodies outside the Kerbin system until the player sends a vessel or researches the body with a space telescope. In addition, some planets and moons like Eeloo, Pol and Bop could start out with having their orbits unknown, creating a reason for players to use a telescope to discover their orbits.

This would then serve as an introduction to discovering planets around other stars, where even their existence is unknown until the player sends a mission to discover them. With the many exoplanets that have been discovered in RL thus far, it may seem like the Kerbals knowing about all the planets in other star systems should be something of a given. But even the most reliable and common method (transits) leaves uncertainty, only works for the few percent of systems where the planetary disk aligns almost perfectly with the host star and the earth and tells us almost nothing about what the planet actually looks like.

So I definitely see a place for game mechanics to enable the discovery of unknown planets. Some details being unknown about some of the bodies in the Kerbin system could serve as a good introduction step to the more difficult task of discovering entirely unknown planets in other systems.

Edited August 30, 2023 by Lyneira

[KUAR]

I'm very interested in anything which adds progression, and limits visual interest until you are there in-person.

It's why I've mentioned in the past that I'd really like a "simulation mode" where you could check if something would land/take off from, e.g., Eve without spoiling the visuals by warping to re-entry and skipping the journey. The more you probe/scansat/science your way the more accurate your simulation mode can be.

I really like the idea that unmanned missions have limits/drawbacks but I agree, an optional setting. Flying solely off telemetry might be fun initially but does take away from the point of building pretty spacecraft.

[modus]

I voted no no yes, but it also depends (or would depend) on what mode I'm playing. If it's sandbox, I want no restrictions, if it's career (or adventure, whatever) some limitations might be nice.

[InterstellarDrifter]

its hilarious how self-contradicting the results are.  Everyone likes the mechanic to improve visual quality but doesn't want any visual quality degradation to improve from...priceless...gamer gotta have his cake.

'Tarsier Space Tech with galaxies'  Is an EXCELLENT KSP1 mod that does most of this. I would love to see it again in KSP2. But obviously would never be viable for stock, people already find rocket science hard, they won't like things that make this space sim any harder.

[Infinite Aerospace]

I like 'all' of those things, count me in! I'm all for making Kerbal Space Program as complex and in depth as possible, I don't just want KSP1 but a bit fancier if I'm honest.

[WelshSteW]

 

'Should' is a bit much maybe. I'd love a system like this, but as with most things I think having it as an option would be more appropriate.

 

Tie this in with good 'discovery' mechanics - eg not simply going into map view and seeing all celestial bodies* - and I think the game would be waaaaaay better.

 

(like the 'research bodies' mod for KSP1. it's not perfect, but it's a decent stab at it)