Stuff about science and missions.

[Alexoff]

How will science differ from science in KSP1? It seems at first it will be almost the same, only you will still need to watch tutorials.

[MechBFP]

4 hours ago, regex said:

These missions kind of scare me though; I hope you're keeping your promise that these will be completely optional to engage with while playing science/adventure/whatever you're calling it mode

If you don't want to engage with science/adventure/whatever mode, then why are you planning on playing that mode in the first place? That is what sandbox mode is for.

Edited September 1, 2023 by MechBFP

[PDCWolf]

2 hours ago, stephensmat said:

Could be either, but I'm thinking it's halfway between the two. Maybe for an 'unlock' or animation. Remember, the future expansions are for Resources, instead of cash. Could be the crane is to symbolize shipments of material. I don't know if they'd make that something in the actual gameplay.

Yeah, it could also be part of colonies.

2 hours ago, stephensmat said:

I'm fine with that.

I'm definitely not, it's just more ammunition for KSP2 having no reason to exist if it's just gonna repeat the mechanics of the first one. Of course, the die isn't cast yet, but signs haven't been positive so far IMHO.

2 hours ago, stephensmat said:

My guess is, they need to add heat effects first. Correct Orbit decay and 'disassemble on staging'. Those, at least to me, are the big ones that need correcting before expansion.

I'm sure their plans is to get Science out this year, I think my previous prediction was in the october/november range, and I stand by it. You can't have a full year without features and expect anyone but the most desperate to stay interested.

[Periple]

I like the concept of missions as opposed to contracts. I do hope there’s more to them than just things popping up on a to-do list!

If we can plan our own missions then that could be pretty cool!

[DancZer]

6 hours ago, MechBFP said:

If you don't want to engage with science/adventure/whatever mode, then why are you planning on playing that mode in the first place? That is what sandbox mode is for.

I think what he mean is he does not want a KSP1 style career mode, where you get random missions, but this time for Science. I'm also a bit afraid that this is the case.

For Science I would like to:

• Scan somehow the celestial bodies E.g.: Kerbin Observatory, Space telescopes, Space Probes on orbit around the body
• Scan result would give some science + potential further science missions which I can chose from. When the scan is complete the similar UI what we have for the Science Archive in KSP1 would show me what I already did and what Is available.
  
• I would keep some Science for the easter Eggs too -> these could add some kind of decoration around the Kerbal Space Center as a reward (an image on the wall in the mission control or so)

Edit: I would like to have missions for science only. I don't like the "Perform test at altitude xy". And I'm totally happy with random Kerbals without any RPG style character development (Eg.: xp). They are all professional afterall.

Edited September 2, 2023 by DancZer

[regex]

7 hours ago, MechBFP said:

If you don't want to engage with science/adventure/whatever mode, then why are you planning on playing that mode in the first place? That is what sandbox mode is for.

It is possible to have progression gameplay without missions telling the player what to do or how to do it, or bugging them to select a mission, or annoying them about possible missions. You can still collect science, advance a tech tree, build colonies, gather resources, build interstellar ships, and start fresh in a new solar system without ever having the game offer a single mission if the player doesn't want to engage with that. Does that make sense? That's what I'd like to see in KSP2. Missions can exist for people who want them but the player should never be required to engage with them while still getting all the benefits of progression gameplay. It's my damn space program, let me decide how to run it!

Edited September 2, 2023 by regex

[Periple]

Just now, regex said:

Missions can exist for people who want them but the player should never be required to engage with them while still getting all the benefits of progression gameplay.

I’m not all that thrilled with the idea that the game hands missions to you, either random or scripted. It would make me feel like I’m running errands not a space program!

It might be interesting if I could plan my own missions, with some benefit for doing so rather than just building a rocket and flying out there. I’m not sure that wouldn’t turn into a chore. Maybe if it was integrated with a dV planner so you can design the craft that fits the mission more easily?

[Alexoff]

9 hours ago, Periple said:

I like the concept of missions as opposed to contracts.

What is the difference between missions and contracts? In both cases, you complete some kind of order to receive an award in the form of science.

[Lar-E]

5 hours ago, regex said:

It is possible to have progression gameplay without missions telling the player what to do or how to do it, or bugging them to select a mission, or annoying them about possible missions. You can still collect science, advance a tech tree, build colonies, gather resources, build interstellar ships, and start fresh in a new solar system without ever having the game offer a single mission if the player doesn't want to engage with that. Does that make sense? That's what I'd like to see in KSP2. Missions can exist for people who want them but the player should never be required to engage with them while still getting all the benefits of progression gameplay. It's my damn space program, let me decide how to run it!

Agree, that is how I am hoping to play KSP2.

[chefsbrian]

Looks promising, although I'll hold my judgement on missions/science until we actually know more. Speculating too much off one screenshot is, at best, how you disappoint yourself by building up unrealistic expectations of a feature :P. I will join the general chorus of "I better not be constrained by the mission layouts" that's being echo'd, but nothing here explicitly worries me that I will actually be constrained in that regard.

Not so interested in the various terrain features though. Glad to see the art teams been keeping busy, and there's nothing wrong with them that says why I'm not impressed, but its like a photo of a water fountain being shown to a guy in a desert - doesn't matter what's out there to see if my rocket falls outta space before I can get there. Not the art teams fault though.

[MechBFP]

10 hours ago, regex said:

It is possible to have progression gameplay without missions telling the player what to do or how to do it, or bugging them to select a mission, or annoying them about possible missions. You can still collect science, advance a tech tree, build colonies, gather resources, build interstellar ships, and start fresh in a new solar system without ever having the game offer a single mission if the player doesn't want to engage with that. Does that make sense? That's what I'd like to see in KSP2. Missions can exist for people who want them but the player should never be required to engage with them while still getting all the benefits of progression gameplay. It's my damn space program, let me decide how to run it!

As long as you are okay with the game not being balanced as a result of ignoring a piece of it, that is fine.  I would suspect that the mode is going to be designed around all its aspects, so if you choose to ignore parts of it you are agreeing to have any issues that come with it. 

[regex]

3 hours ago, MechBFP said:

As long as you are okay with the game not being balanced as a result of ignoring a piece of it, that is fine.  I would suspect that the mode is going to be designed around all its aspects, so if you choose to ignore parts of it you are agreeing to have any issues that come with it. 

Maybe they autocomplete if you ignore them and you get the resource/science bonus from them, maybe you can intentionally hamper yourself by ignoring them, I personally don't care so long as they remain completely optional as already confirmed by Nate. I would love to be blissfully unaware that this sort of guidance exists in the game, even as confirmation that I've completed them.

Edited September 2, 2023 by regex

[PicoSpace]

On 9/2/2023 at 1:58 AM, DancZer said:

I think what he mean is he does not want a KSP1 style career mode, where you get random missions, but this time for Science. I'm also a bit afraid that this is the case.

For Science I would like to:

• Scan somehow the celestial bodies E.g.: Kerbin Observatory, Space telescopes, Space Probes on orbit around the body
• Scan result would give some science + potential further science missions which I can chose from. When the scan is complete the similar UI what we have for the Science Archive in KSP1 would show me what I already did and what Is available.
  
• I would keep some Science for the easter Eggs too -> these could add some kind of decoration around the Kerbal Space Center as a reward (an image on the wall in the mission control or so)

Edit: I would like to have missions for science only. I don't like the "Perform test at altitude xy". And I'm totally happy with random Kerbals without any RPG style character development (Eg.: xp). They are all professional afterall.

Personally I was hoping for Timed Science (experiments take time to perform and kick out science points - think Kerbalism) and repeatability (you can run the experiment over and over but each time the amount of science you gets drops so this pushes to to explore new places etc but still can collect science if you are stuck for a part). But I worry about the missions as I know in KSP1 there are a lot of "do this/do that" that are not progressing the search of space but more testing equipment in silly conditions.
 

On 9/2/2023 at 2:52 AM, regex said:

It is possible to have progression gameplay without missions telling the player what to do or how to do it, or bugging them to select a mission, or annoying them about possible missions. You can still collect science, advance a tech tree, build colonies, gather resources, build interstellar ships, and start fresh in a new solar system without ever having the game offer a single mission if the player doesn't want to engage with that. Does that make sense? That's what I'd like to see in KSP2. Missions can exist for people who want them but the player should never be required to engage with them while still getting all the benefits of progression gameplay. It's my damn space program, let me decide how to run it!

I'd like a more "milestone" mission rewards that are always active and you get "paid/rewarded" when you reach them, that way you don't have to do them but maybe you need some extra resources/science or whatever so you go and plant that Mun Flag just for the rewards for that milestone (even though you skipped Mun and are building a Minnus Colony).

Those are my thoughts anyways. Otherwise its just a repeat of KSP1 offerings.

[Vl3d]

Just now, PicoSpace said:

Personally I was hoping for Timed Science (experiments take time to perform and kick out science points - think Kerbalism)

If elements of this are not implemented I'll be really disappointment. I absolutely love Simplex Kerbalism. Also I would like to maybe see more mini-games for science that requires user input - just clicking "do science" is not ideal gameplay. Science can be so much more!

3 minutes ago, PicoSpace said:

I'd like a more "milestone" mission rewards that are always active and you get "paid/rewarded" when you reach them, that way you don't have to do them but maybe you need some extra resources/science or whatever so you go and plant that Mun Flag just for the rewards for that milestone (even though you skipped Mun and are building a Minnus Colony).

I agree with this - missions can be explicit for newer players, but when completing a milestone these missions should also get flagged as done and offer rewards.

[Periple]

6 hours ago, Vl3d said:

If elements of this are not implemented I'll be really disappointment. I absolutely love Simplex Kerbalism. Also I would like to maybe see more mini-games for science that requires user input - just clicking "do science" is not ideal gameplay. Science can be so much more!

I don’t think time-based mechanics work for a game like KSP. If they’re benefits, you can just warp to get them immediately (like the way the lab totally breaks science in KSP1), and if they’re costs they will ruin your day when you have to warp while doing a long-distance mission.

Also just NO to science minigames, those would be awful! 

Edited September 4, 2023 by Periple

[Vl3d]

5 hours ago, Periple said:

I don’t think time-based mechanics work for a game like KSP. If they’re benefits, you can just warp to get them immediately (like the way the lab totally breaks science in KSP1), and if they’re costs they will ruin your day when you have to warp while doing a long-distance mission.

Also just NO to science minigames, those would be awful! 

To clarify, I was thinking more along the lines of automated science experiments (taking temperature or pressure while you're in a biome without the need to click) and a few unique complex experiments that teach you something. Of course timed experiments and the file system work well in Kerbalism because of the nature of the limited life support resources - this probably will not apply to stock KSP 2. But I just want things to be less grindy, more interesting, engaging, rewarding and unique.

[Alexoff]

7 hours ago, Periple said:

like the way the lab totally breaks science in KSP1

A bunch of biomes on Mun and Minmus broke the balance. In my career, I had unlocked almost every tech by the time my first low tech satellite got to Gilly. And I launched it in the first week

[cocoscacao]

10 hours ago, Alexoff said:

A bunch of biomes on Mun and Minmus broke the balance.

I really hope they improved the concept of biomes somehow...

[The Aziz]

It's not much an amount of biomes that's a problem. It's the amount of science you could pull from each one. If you found a landing spot on the corner of 3 biomes, you could get 3 times as much science as you would from a regular landing - when there wouldn't be much of a difference in readings. On the Mun there are basically two options for temperature reading (cold and hot), but in KSP1 you could get a lot more. So what needs to change are the experiments. With more sensible approach you could get more science from eg. Regolith samples, because they could be different on the poles and let's say one of the equatorial craters.

[Alexoff]

13 hours ago, The Aziz said:

If you found a landing spot on the corner of 3 biomes, you could get 3 times as much science as you would from a regular landing

Moreover, you can make several jumps on close biomes and take science "above" from them. Total science is multiplied by 6!

[cocoscacao]

16 hours ago, The Aziz said:

It's not much an amount of biomes that's a problem. It's the amount of science you could pull from each one

It's not about biome as such. It's about repeating the same thing. Now, some repetition is bound to exist (like the gameplay loop, duh), but I hope it is spiced up in some way. Different biomes require different science equipment or something. This is also a double edged sword, since that can potentially mean sending 2 rockets to do the same job. Or designing one that is able to carry everything, with enough fuel to "bio-hop" around. Dunno. I'm not a game designer. We'll see what they've cooked up for us, in time....

[Pthigrivi]

16 hours ago, The Aziz said:

It's not much an amount of biomes that's a problem. It's the amount of science you could pull from each one. If you found a landing spot on the corner of 3 biomes, you could get 3 times as much science as you would from a regular landing - when there wouldn't be much of a difference in readings. On the Mun there are basically two options for temperature reading (cold and hot), but in KSP1 you could get a lot more. So what needs to change are the experiments. With more sensible approach you could get more science from eg. Regolith samples, because they could be different on the poles and let's say one of the equatorial craters.

In some ways it is the number of biomes because keeping the same number and reducing the return could potentially just make the biome-hopping grind even worse. This problem of getting bogged down smurfing science with dozens of Munar/Minmar missions in the early game is one of the key challenges in overhauling science. Chris Adderley did say in his AMA that this pacing and scaling problem has been the hardest hurdle in developing science, and that some of the key problems they hoped to address are opacity and balance. Folks have brought up introducing different flavors of science--atmospheric science, moon science, inner planets science, outer planets science, etc. I do think that could help. Another idea would be that bodies only have a 3 or 4 big general biomes but there were other much smaller biomes around anomalies that would need to be scanned for to find easily. That way most players would only really be doing 6 or 8 missions around the Mun and Minmus before they felt like the next step was to send out interplanetary probes. 

On 9/4/2023 at 5:30 AM, Vl3d said:

To clarify, I was thinking more along the lines of automated science experiments (taking temperature or pressure while you're in a biome without the need to click) and a few unique complex experiments that teach you something. Of course timed experiments and the file system work well in Kerbalism because of the nature of the limited life support resources - this probably will not apply to stock KSP 2. But I just want things to be less grindy, more interesting, engaging, rewarding and unique.

This is the other thing Chris hinted at: different experiments requiring different locations, different amounts of time, and even different resources to work. Im happy to hear that. My feeling has been that it was never really the principle of science points that was fundamentally unworkable just that the experiments themselves were all so similar that you didn't really need to think about how to employ them. That reduced the experience to land anywhere, click half a dozen times, land somewhere else, rinse, repeat. 

And yeah there's not such a big problem with time because ideally players would be filling in time between interplanetary windows anyway, but definitely....life support helps. (DEVS PLZ LS!)

Edited September 5, 2023 by Pthigrivi

[Pthigrivi]

On 9/2/2023 at 2:52 AM, regex said:

It is possible to have progression gameplay without missions telling the player what to do or how to do it, or bugging them to select a mission, or annoying them about possible missions. You can still collect science, advance a tech tree, build colonies, gather resources, build interstellar ships, and start fresh in a new solar system without ever having the game offer a single mission if the player doesn't want to engage with that. Does that make sense? That's what I'd like to see in KSP2. Missions can exist for people who want them but the player should never be required to engage with them while still getting all the benefits of progression gameplay. It's my damn space program, let me decide how to run it!

This is kind of like something Nate talked about with intrinsic vs extrinsic goals. In my opinion the more a game can lean on rewards that are tied to the structural mechanics of the game the more flexibility and creativity players can employ to meet those intrinsic goals. Extrinsic goals for me sound more like a branch of the onboarding experience, providing a bit of structure and guidance to help new players through the important steps and helping them to learn the fundamentals and even teach experienced players new things like how colonies work. Thats where I could see explicit missions coming in, kind of like the hidden milestone missions in KSP1. As you say I think they could be automatic as well---so long as you do the task you get the reward and you don't really need to micromanage accepting or rejecting them. I imagine they'd probably end up being a bit more dense at the beginning--getting players to orbit and to Minmus and the Mun, then giving a bit of extra incentive to go interplanetary. They could also create rewards toward your first docking, building a station and starter base or setting up telescopes and landing on new worlds. As time goes on though I hope the general mechanics of science gathering and ISRU kind of take over and become the main drivers for growth and exploration.

Edited September 5, 2023 by Pthigrivi

[MechBFP]

On 9/3/2023 at 9:45 PM, Periple said:

I don’t think time-based mechanics work for a game like KSP. If they’re benefits, you can just warp to get them immediately (like the way the lab totally breaks science in KSP1), and if they’re costs they will ruin your day when you have to warp while doing a long-distance mission.

Also just NO to science minigames, those would be awful! 

Yup this right here. Given that one of the design pillars is that a player should be able to do what they want, when they want, any time based mechanics would be very counter to that; I would highly question what they were thinking if they implement anything of the sort. 

Edited September 5, 2023 by MechBFP

[Pthigrivi]

2 hours ago, MechBFP said:

Yup this right here. Given that one of the design pillars is that a player should be able to do what they want, when they want, any time based mechanics would be very counter to that; I would highly question what they were thinking if they implement anything of the sort. 

Is that one of the design pillars? Presumably ISRU resources will take time to mine, right? SCANsat surface scans take time but most everyone here seems like they'd be happy to see that over KSP1's insta-scan system. If they're really trying to make interplanetary missions a fully integrated part of the experience you kind of have the opposite problem: What is filling players time for hundreds of days in between transfer windows and in transit? If players are encouraged by the base mechanics of the game to run hundreds of KSOI missions while their Jool mission is in transit they're very unlikely to get very far.