Science is pretty much stupid. Just get rid of it.

[Datau03]

One thing I'd love to see would be some connection between science you do and gameplay other than just the tech tree- for example telescopes (Which I think are planned for interstellar) enabling you to discover new planets or as another example giving you data on how well an engine works in a specific atmosphere

[Bej Kerman]

Just now, Datau03 said:

data on how well an engine works in a specific atmosphere

Yes. Imagine if new players unlocked engines then had to figure out their performance. So much interesting than the stupid, pointless, ridiculous rat maze people call "science", then have the nerve to complain about when KSP 2 reveals how stupid simple it is by consolidating clicking 20 identical buttons to clicking 1 button,

[hatterson]

1 minute ago, Bej Kerman said:

Yes. Imagine if new players unlocked engines then had to figure out their performance. So much interesting than the stupid, pointless, ridiculous rat maze people call "science", then have the nerve to complain about when KSP 2 reveals how stupid simple it is by consolidating clicking 20 identical buttons to clicking 1 button,

That sounds like a great game mode or mod for advanced players. It sounds awful for new players.

"You unlocked a new engine, yay!" "What does it do?" "dunno, figure it out I guess"

The tech tree/R&D setup is an abstraction of the process of designing and building brand new parts. Part of scientists designing new parts would obviously be understanding the specs of them (at least under known conditions). You could absolutely have a mod/game mode where players play a lot of the "testing" part of that, but that's far more of a thing for an experienced player to do than a new one. Plus that wouldn't actually make it any more interesting/engaging, it would just add a bunch of extra mind numbing steps to actually get to properly use a new part.

Yay I unlocked a new engine, guess I'll run my routine set of three test flights that I've run a dozen times before to see what it does.

[Bej Kerman]

2 minutes ago, hatterson said:

it would just add a bunch of extra mind numbing steps to actually get to properly use a new part.

Like doing the same thing a million times to unlock it in the first place?

Maybe the dev team should completely get rid of the science mode. It only exists for the sake of people who refuse to touch a game unless it gatekeeps itself.

[HebaruSan]

1 minute ago, hatterson said:

Yay I unlocked a new engine, guess I'll run my routine set of three test flights that I've run a dozen times before to see what it does.

And why would I choose one tech tree node over another if I have no idea what any of the parts do? If the parts are the same from one playthrough to the next, are you only ever meant to play this game mode concept one time, since you already know the outcome of this major piece of gameplay? Why wouldn't you just go check a wiki?

[hatterson]

Just now, Bej Kerman said:

Like doing the same thing a million times to unlock it in the first place?

Maybe the dev team should completely get rid of the science mode. It only exists for the sake of people who refuse to touch a game unless it gatekeeps itself.

You're not doing the same thing over and over again though. Especially on lower difficulty (higher science value) settings, the missions flow so you're pretty constantly doing a new mission/going to a new place. You do a short atmospheric/suborbital flight, then an orbital one, then you go to the Mun, then Minmus, then Duna, then Eve/Jool, etc.

[The Aziz]

Weird how most of the issues people have here are related to clunky interface and the removal of one thing that was considered bad because it was tedious after first 3 hours.

[Bej Kerman]

7 minutes ago, hatterson said:

You're not doing the same thing over and over again though. Especially on lower difficulty (higher science value) settings, the missions flow so you're pretty constantly doing a new mission/going to a new place. You do a short atmospheric/suborbital flight, then an orbital one, then you go to the Mun, then Minmus, then Duna, then Eve/Jool, etc.

Yeah. You push the same button but in a marginally different place. What fun gameplay.

[hatterson]

1 minute ago, Bej Kerman said:

Yeah. You push the same button but in a marginally different place. What fun gameplay.

TBH if this is the level you're going to simplify it to, then the entirety of KSP is dumb and pointless. All you're doing is staging and creating a couple maneuver nodes in a marginally different place the entire time.

The point of science mode is so that you don't just launch 500 ton landers to Laythe on your first launch. It's fun to build up a program, make decisions on what to pursue, etc.

[Bej Kerman]

Just now, hatterson said:

TBH if this is the level you're going to simplify it to

I am not simplifying anything. If you wanted your entire save game of going places boiled down to "go places to increase counter" feel free to use science mode. It is completely useless otherwise.

[Datau03]

27 minutes ago, hatterson said:

 The tech tree/R&D setup is an abstraction of the process of designing and building brand new parts. Part of scientists designing new parts would obviously be understanding the specs of them (at least under known conditions). You could absolutely have a mod/game mode where players play a lot of the "testing" part of that, but that's far more of a thing for an experienced player to do than a new one. Plus that wouldn't actually make it any more interesting/engaging, it would just add a bunch of extra mind numbing steps to actually get to properly use a new part.

Yay I unlocked a new engine, guess I'll run my routine set of three test flights that I've run a dozen times before to see what it does.

The scientists and engineers know how an engine performs under specific conditions, so the thing you'd figure out (Using science parts) would be those conditions in an enviroment, not how the engine works.

Edited December 26, 2023 by Datau03

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

29 minutes ago, Datau03 said:

One thing I'd love to see would be some connection between science you do and gameplay other than just the tech tree- for example telescopes (Which I think are planned for interstellar) enabling you to discover new planets or as another example giving you data on how well an engine works in a specific atmosphere

 

6 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Weird how most of the issues people have here are related to clunky interface and the removal of one thing that was considered bad because it was tedious after first 3 hours.

Again - nothing exists in a vacuum... and I've tried to link to the context of where this is coming from.

Many of us wanted to see a revamped science system - with purpose.  My 'Kerbilopedia' idea; where the player's actions expand knowledge of what's going on throughout the system was just one of them. 

Most people did not want a reprise of the KSP Science system - they wanted an improvement that would have meaningful relationships to gameplay.  Many of us also wanted to tie that into 'inspiring a new generation' of scientists potential with the launch of 2.

My observation - what I've said about Science, what nertea said about CommNet and other things that are important to some players just apparently isn't part of the current gameplay direction.  I'm acknowledging that they're building the game they want - and Colonies / Resource Management is apparently gonna be the KSP2 'Killer App'.

The 'stuff I want' may actually be a DLC at some point; much of it was in 1.  For that we need to wait for the full game.

shrug - and grouse.

[hatterson]

1 minute ago, Datau03 said:

The scientists and engineers might know how an engine performs under specific conditions, so the thing you'd figure out (Using science parts) would be those conditions in an enviroment, not how the engine works.

So you mean something like an environmental survey?

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

3 minutes ago, hatterson said:

So you mean something like an environmental survey?

Which could show the player something like this:

Curiosity Data Reveals Changes Martian Atmosphere (scitechdaily.com)

Likely not fun for the 'build wacky craft' crew - but for immersiveness / education?

Edited December 26, 2023 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[Datau03]

20 minutes ago, hatterson said:

So you mean something like an environmental survey?

Yeah, so that could mean unlocking delta-v calculations for that planet's atmosphere once you make an enviromental survey there

Edited December 26, 2023 by Datau03

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

2 minutes ago, Datau03 said:

Yeah, so that could mean unlocking delta-v calculations for that planet's once you make an enviromental survey there

+1

Adding purpose and meaning and tying in 'doing science' to gameplay progression!

 

 

 

(Sandbox for those who don't want to mess with it)

[hatterson]

12 minutes ago, Datau03 said:

Yeah, so that could mean unlocking delta-v calculations for that planet's once you make an enviromental survey there

Perhaps you could lock the "delta-v at X atmosphere height on body Y" behind doing an environmental survey on that body to get at the pressure, but the base delta-v (vacuum) calculations aren't gonna change for a rocket engine.

It would make sense to also be unaware if you can use an open cycle engine on a given body unless you've done a survey there.

13 minutes ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Which could show the player something like this:

Curiosity Data Reveals Changes Martian Atmosphere (scitechdaily.com)

Likely not fun for the 'build wacky craft' crew - but for immersiveness / education?

I think a lot of this type of stuff might be added with future milestones like colonies (having to scout planets for various locations). I'd agree in general that a kerbolpedia would be fun to show extra data to the player, but I'm not sure how much you really want to force a player to do advanced science to play the game.

The educational/inspirational nature of KSP hasn't been to force the player to actually learn these topis to play, but rather to preset information (like ISP or delta-v calculations), make it fun, and then see if the person playing wants to research that independently. Yes you could prompt them a bit more in game to say "hey all these numbers actually mean something, wanna see what?" but I don't think you want to realistically force them to engage in that if they don't want to.

Edited December 26, 2023 by hatterson

[Superfluous J]

5 hours ago, MechBFP said:

The main issue I have with it right now is that it is annoying and tedious trying to find the experiment I just ran in order to read the flavor text. First I have to open the report tab, then I need to scroll down, then I need to usually click on the text to expand it, and then I need to almost  squint to read it because of the size/font.

Which is not helped by the fact that the report window fills with 0-point reports that you can't delete. Unless you spend the EC to transmit the half you can transmit, then you can delete them.

4 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I'm saying they were the wrong people to listen to.

As one of those people, I wholeheartedly disagree

4 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

I liked hauling out and setting up the remote stations.

I liked that too. it wasn't just clicking buttons.Granted, the current science is just clicking a button, but at least you only have to do it once.

Edited December 26, 2023 by Superfluous J

[Superfluous J]

1 hour ago, Bej Kerman said:

If you wanted your entire save game of going places boiled down to "go places to increase counter" feel free to use science mode. It is completely useless otherwise.

That's...

...basically what I want. Yes.

[PDCWolf]

2 hours ago, regex said:

I don't see it. We could definitely use some sort of way to see biomes, that's always been a really dumb "feature" of KSP, but otherwise just having science occur automatically is so much better than the previous game, especially not having that artificially limiting concept of kerbal "classes" (I could get behind it more if they'd gotten rid of the pilot class). I get to focus on flying and seeing the sights, not trying to right click every little thing on my craft because I forgot to set up an action group and then going to collect it while heading towards the ground, it's miles better than "right-click receive reward".

Right now, science has been reduced to a rat in a cage waiting for a blinking box to click a button. As the OP said, why even have science at that point? 

I agree with most of your points, I hated the pilot class letting a kerbal that didn't even know to hold prograde (or press the button to do so) fly a rocket, but I think it's well worth it to draw a line between "this system requires involvement" and "we simplified this whole gameplay to check a light and click a button when it flashes".

There's no way people in any universe are considering the second option as good gameplay.

[Bej Kerman]

13 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

Right now, science has been reduced to a rat in a cage waiting for a blinking box to click a button. As the OP said, why even have science at that point? 

Reduced from what? A rat in a cage waiting for a blinking box to click five buttons?

Edited December 26, 2023 by Bej Kerman

[regex]

10 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

"we simplified this whole gameplay to check a light and click a button when it flashes".

Honestly, I'm pretty sure you don't ever have to interact with that blinking button and you only have to open the science window to transmit based on my (admittedly limited) science mode play. The only other science actions you ever need to do is right-clicking kerbals (or, I presume, the sample gathering rover arm) for ground science. Quite frankly I think that's brilliant because "science" is just currency recording where I've been and what I've done. It doesn't ever need to be anything else. That's really boiling down the KSP gameplay to "build, fly, repeat", to get out there and do things, to push further. IMO it's a great take on the formula and because it's not some front-and-center mechanic which requires you to know the ins-and-outs of KSP in order to leverage it works much better as an impetus for the naturally timid to go outside of Kerbin SOI.

19 minutes ago, PDCWolf said:

There's no way people in any universe are considering the second option as good gameplay.

Sorry to disappoint you bub.

[Bej Kerman]

6 minutes ago, regex said:

That's really boiling down the KSP gameplay to "build, fly, repeat"

Then it's redundant and you should just play sandbox mode.

Or maybe the dev team shouldn't justify such a ridiculous gameplay mechanic as points in this decade.

Edited December 26, 2023 by Bej Kerman

[regex]

2 minutes ago, Bej Kerman said:

Then it's redundant and you should just play sandbox mode.

Why would I do that? I enjoy progression in my gameplay.

[Bej Kerman]

21 minutes ago, regex said:

Why would I do that? I enjoy progression in my gameplay.

Of course you enjoy progression, I'm not debating that. I am saying that the devs chose the laziest, least dignified way of creating progression they could have done that effectively leaves science mode players as rats in a maze.