Tech Tree Balance Megathread

[Scarecrow71]

44 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

Well then that seems to be a failure of research into the years of talks about the matter. It is just illogical to think it's easier for first time players to learn about liquid fuel engines, throttle control, kerbals, pods, reaction wheels, parachutes, experiments etc. on the first flight.. instead of just a probe, an SRB, staging and maybe some control surfaces. It's a classic case of putting the carriage before the horse.

I gotta whole-heartedly disagree with you here.  Truth be told, I think it might be easier to learn with a Kerbal than with a probe.

"So, I landed a probe on the Mun, but I can't take a crew report."

"Yeah, they can't do that.  Kerbals can, though."

"Oh.  What about a soil sample?"

"Kerbals can do that.  Your probe needs an extra piece that you may not have unlocked yet"

"Ok.  What about planting a flag?"

"Another thing the Kerbal can do that the probe can't."

"What good are probes if they can't do any of this stuff?"

"Um..."

Kerbals and probes, due to the lack of life support, have the exact same function in the game.  The major difference is that Kerbals can do stuff that probes either can't OR need extra parts to do.  Far easier to learn with a Kerbal than with a probe.

[Vl3d]

Was it not clear I was talking about the first flight? It's right there in the text..

2 minutes ago, Scarecrow71 said:

on the first flight..

But still you're mentioning Mun landings..

Edited January 3 by Vl3d

[The Aziz]

1 hour ago, Vl3d said:

Players who killed Jeb or Val during their first KSP 2 FS! flights would disagree.

Was that because their vessel had lost all control due to loss of electricity, or did it crash into terrain due to lack of a parachute? Oh wait, that can only happen with probes.

1 hour ago, Vl3d said:

failure of research into the years of talks about the matter.

Sorry?

1 hour ago, Vl3d said:

just a probe, an SRB, staging and maybe some control surfaces

Also batteries, solar panels, antennas, even more reaction wheels because probe's own is way too weak to control much more than its own core. Weird how you forgot about those. And if you omit parachutes and experiments, what's your probe for then? It won't gather science (the only purpose of those first few flights) and even if it did, it will crash because no parachute, so you'll end up with nothing anyway. Your first flight is nothing more than a waste of time.

Besides, there's one thing you keep forgetting when you talk about how "hard" it is to learn basics - there are friggin tutorials right there. Yes there isn't many of them and they don't cover all the basics but there's nothing harder about methalox engine than there is about an SRB. I'd say it's easier because the Swivel gives the player some control over the rocket, with SRB you shoot straight up... And that's about it.

I'd like to refer again to the Science Deep Dive video where it's all explained.

Edited January 3 by The Aziz

[Periple]

31 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

Which part of this statement is false?

All of it.

32 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

Also which part of this statement is false?

All of it. 

[Scarecrow71]

40 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

But still you're mentioning Mun landings..

For starters, I responded to your sentence(s) in regard to ease of using kerbals vs. probes.  Nowhere in what I quoted did you mention a first landing AT ALL.  Go re-read what I quoted you on.

Secondly, what I gave was an example conversation.  Substitute whatever celestial body you want for Mun...or just keep taking what is being stated out of context to prove your own point to yourself.

[Vl3d]

47 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Also batteries, solar panels, antennas, even more reaction wheels because probe's own is way too weak to control much more than its own core. Weird how you forgot about those.

I did not forget about those. For the first suborbital flight it's enough for the player to only have aerodynamic control surfaces and the engine's alternator as an EC source. When the engine stops, EC goes to zero and control stops; when you get out of the atmosphere, control stops. When it comes down in flames, you learn about heating. When it crashes into the ground or ocean, you learn that you need parachutes. That's how you learn about the basics of suborbital flight, before all the other complicated stuff.

Edited January 3 by Vl3d

[Periple]

No you don’t. You just lose control of your rocket and burn up without understanding why.

[Vl3d]

50 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

Your first flight is nothing more than a waste of time.

No, it is the most valuable learning experience for a new KSP player, and the Starting Rocketry node in KSP 2 is messing that up.

Edited January 3 by Vl3d

[Periple]

1 minute ago, Vl3d said:

No, it is the most valuable learning experience for a new KSP player.

How many players have you seen try out KSP for the first time? I’m guessing zero.

[Vl3d]

4 minutes ago, Periple said:

How many players have you seen try out KSP for the first time? I’m guessing zero.

Please stop constantly harassing me. You have all my arguments above about why there's a better learning progression with Stayputnik, a small SRB and control surfaces and why the Starting Rocketry node is currently bad. If you want to talk, bring counter-arguments. I've been very explicit and clear in my reasoning.

[The Aziz]

On 1/3/2024 at 9:27 AM, Vl3d said:

When the engine stops, EC goes to zero and control stops; when you get out of the atmosphere, control stops. When it comes down in flames, you learn about heating. When it crashes into the ground or ocean, you learn that you need parachutes. That's how you learn about the basics of suborbital flight, before all the other complicated stuff.

[snip] how are you going to get access to the oh so revolutionary safety tech when all flight attempts result in a catastrophic failure, one way or the other?

Edited January 30 by Vanamonde

[Periple]

23 minutes ago, Vl3d said:

Please stop constantly harassing me. You have all my arguments above about why there's a better learning progression with Stayputnik, a small SRB and control surfaces and why the Starting Rocketry node is currently bad. If you want to talk, bring counter-arguments. I've been very explicit and clear in my reasoning.

I am not harassing you, and I did make the counter-arguments, as did others. You on the other hand failed to address them. Instead you just dismissed them and reasserted your opinion as fact.

Your arguments betray a complete lack of understanding about how people learn, how they play games, what engages them, what causes them to bounce, and what keeps them engaged. You present these opinions as facts, and you ignore counterarguments, or at best dismiss them, often with language like “failure to research” or “stupid.” 

So please address the reasoned objections to your points if you expect others to engage with you constructively. Or don’t, but then expect others to respond to you in kind.

[hatterson]

A probe core with an SRB strapped to it is absolutely not an engaging first flight experience for a new player. It's literally press a button and watch what happens.

Instead of showing you that KSP is a dynamic game where you both build rockets *and* fly them, the first few experiences you're giving a player is that KSP is a game about designing rockets and then watching them fly.

I'm a huge proponent of starting with probes, but only for *experienced* players. I played a *ton* of the Better Than Starting Manned mod back in the day, but it is absolutely not the type of experience you want to have if the goal is to bring new players to the game.

[regex]

1 hour ago, Vl3d said:

No, it is the most valuable learning experience for a new KSP player, and the Starting Rocketry node in KSP 2 is messing that up.

Tutorials exist. There's even a "Training Center" at the KSC. That's where new players should, and probably will, start, not by staring at the first tech tree node blankly wondering how they're not going to kill a Kerbal.

[hatterson]

18 minutes ago, regex said:

Tutorials exist. There's even a "Training Center" at the KSC. That's where new players should, and probably will, start, not by staring at the first tech tree node blankly wondering how they're not going to kill a Kerbal.

And new players should start with (crazy idea here) "Cadet Orientation" on. It's enabled by default and you have to explicitly disable it if you don't want it.

When a save is started that way you get the fun intro video narrated by discount Carl Sagan that cuts out half way through and gives you the feel that this is absolutely not a super serious rocket game but is instead intended to be a bit silly. p.a.i.g.e. then explicitly tells you about the training center and to head over there to learn the basics. Additionally, when you go into the VAB p.a.i.g.e. again mentions the training center and says how it goes over everything from how to build rockets and beyond.

The game does not force you, even if you're brand new, to do training missions or stupid training wheels stuff, but it absolutely gives you more than enough hints that if you don't know what's going on you *can* do those things to learn.

[The Aziz]

I can give you feedback.

Tier 3, Large Payloads, with Wayfarer hab, large cargo bays, fairing and engine plate should definitely land BEFORE Heavy trusses. Don't see why such essential parts are hidden behind fluff, and two levels of it even, because out of 6 parts in Heavy Construction, only two are not trusses. One is a tube, the other is a large adapter.

And honestly the same thing goes for Tier 4. I need to get through two nodes of just trusses to get a fairing, that's not right.

Tier 1 and 2 are much better balanced in that regard.

[Oak7603]

I played KSP1 all the time, and compared to most people and videos I saw, I sucked! I got soft locked into the tech tree all the time as I couldn't complete whatever the next mission was to get the next amount of science and so would just start again. I play KSP2 now, and guess what...I suck. I'm soft locked again as I can't for the life of me finish the Tylo mission. That 10000 science looks nice but I can't get it.

So for me, as a veteran KSP player, but one that severly lacks any skill or the ability to learn from my mistakes, I have always felt that the ramp up in science requirements goes too quick based on the missions that you are given. Yeah I could practice, and do this and do that but I want to play the missions so that's my suggestion - tone down the later science costs, or give more secondary mission so I can still make some a slow progression.

As for the kerbal's v Probe argument, I can categorically say, for myself, and for those that I convince to play, the connection to your kerbals is what makes the game fun. If I had to start with probes I wouldn't have that connection. I have kerbals littered all over the kerbal system. My latest crew member is sat at the botton of the mohole wondering who is gonna rescue her. I could delete her. But she's a kerbal and I will rescue her when I get better. I will also rescue the one on Laythe. The two in Laythe orbit. The 2 orbiting Jool... You get the picture

[Periple]

I also think the SWERV is unlocked too early. It's just STUPIDLY powerful, it should be an expensive purchase at the end of Tier 4. 

[The Aziz]

Swerv is fine, without it I wouldn't be able to do a joint Jool-3 mission (Laythe+Tylo+Pol). Keep in mind that soon more advanced engines are coming and I don't think there will be enough different engines coming to get gods know how many tiers, especially now that they're closing on 4-digit numbers.

[Periple]

18 hours ago, Oak7603 said:

I played KSP1 all the time, and compared to most people and videos I saw, I sucked! I got soft locked into the tech tree all the time as I couldn't complete whatever the next mission was to get the next amount of science and so would just start again. I play KSP2 now, and guess what...I suck. I'm soft locked again as I can't for the life of me finish the Tylo mission. That 10000 science looks nice but I can't get it.

I dropped a rover there, it wasn't that hard. A crewed return mission does get complicated.

[Oak7603]

2 hours ago, Periple said:

... it wasn't that hard...

Haha entirely subjective of course.

That was in fact my next plan, so I spent all day yesterday and built a mun autonomous rover, that I finally managed to actually get on the surface, and then there is some sort of issue and I've had to make a bug report as it is stuck as if there is an invisible weight on it that pulls it over and won't turn back. Maybe KSP just hates me.

[Planterium]

over Probe vs Crewed argument, I am pretty sure KSP2 takes some time after the original KSP game as evident by the flavour texts in mission control and easter eggs. They even mention satellites existing in the flavour text which implies a previous space program. 

So I am more guessing we are playing as a new space agency or a resurgence of a previous one. Just like NASA started off going to space and into the moon but stepped back due to budget cuts and other reasons but then right now, formulates the Artemis Program for a return to the Moon.

[Jeq]

Rover wheels are too far at science tech to get, you should be able to get some kind of rover with first crewed Mun mission landing.

[Brahms_IV]

Back to tech-tree balance

• I do feel like the first launch progress too quickly through the initial science, but then stalls out a bit toward the end of T1 into T2 for new players. I've got an absurd amount of experience so I burn through the trees very quickly, but even I slow down a fair bit as soon as I hit that first Duna Landing mission. I think that some of that initial speed of progression would be mitigated by new players needing to run tutorials to get the mechanics for orbital flight, so I guess that is something to consider. Potential suggestions:
  • Maybe tying the first three missions/launches into a tutorial (opt-out in game start), or breaking the Starting Parts into a simplified initial node and a node you unlock with 1-5 science after your first launch
  • Giving another Mun mission to a Polar biome, or something very specifically different than the Arch would (imo) show players how to do other-biome science to get through any progression barriers they find. Unlocking this as a side mission at the same time as the Duna Arch mission, and having it reward 100-400 science would be both a nice boost to research around that point in progression, and also be a natural way to prompt players to do their own biome-specific missions.
  • This may actually be a down-side of combining all the different science experiment parts into just "Science Jr." - I really like the ease of running experiments, but it feels like one launch with one part can accomplish all science to be done in your tier for any specific biome. Until you get to the next tier, you've got 1 maybe 2 different parts, which means that there's very little point to re-running a mission for different science until hundreds or thousands of science points later when you have radiation science, a lab, etc.
    • More incremental science part progression scattered through the tech trees  might help this feel better, while still allowing easy science collection with a single button push for all experiments
• I still get a little frustrated at how separate the Medium Payloads (fairings especially) are from the medium fuel/engines.
  • I would actually like to see the Fairings and Cargo Bays in different nodes, as the cargo bays feel like something to progress to later for re-usable rockets, etc. while fairings are early expendable protection for payload stages early in the game.
  • That said, it's more a personal preference of progression and if there are other reasons to delay these payloads as they currently are, I'll continue to work around it!

[Periple]

I would like of the tech tree had genuinely different branches you could pursue instead of one gateway tech per tier. Like if you wanted to go all-in on spaceplanes, you could do that.