[spoilers] Thoughts on the main missions

[Periple]

I finally got to play 0.2.0 and I’m enjoying it a lot. So far I’ve only done the Mun and Minmus missions but I think I see what’s going on here.

First off, I think it’s a great idea to have story missions that encourage you to explore. A lot of KSP players never went interplanetary and this is a great way to get them to do that.

However, I think there is a missed opportunity there, and I hope they’ll flesh it out as more systems come online. As it is they just tell you where to go, give you a waypoint, you to go there, and you see something cool and get science points. I’m being led by the nose a bit too transparently.

I’d really like to discover those anomalies myself. I think the missions need a discovery mechanic. Maybe it’s a scanning system that you’ll also use to find resources. The first missions could introduce us to the mechanic and walk us through how it works; subsequent missions could just point us in a general direction and leave the rest to us: “We’ve determined that the garbled signal from the Jool system originates from at least five distinct sources, and we’d like you to find them.” 

I hope the current missions are that way just because there aren’t any scanning mechanics in place yet and this will become more sophisticated in future updates. I also hope it’ll open up so I get to choose where to go next rather than feeding me the missions one at a time. 

[cubinator]

I agree, I hope to see a far more detailed system of discovery built around science and exploration. And I think the monuments should function as puzzles or signals that the player needs to figure out themselves. Perhaps there is some inspiration to be taken from Outer Wilds...?

[DaveLChgo]

Agree whole heartily with the above posts.   I would also like to see being able to review accepted missions while in the VAB.   Trying to keep the tasks in my noggin while putting together a craft to do the tasks is a bit too much of a task....  I mean its really tasking.... it really is!

[Bej Kerman]

On 1/6/2024 at 8:03 PM, cubinator said:

I agree, I hope to see a far more detailed system of discovery built around science and exploration. And I think the monuments should function as puzzles or signals that the player needs to figure out themselves. Perhaps there is some inspiration to be taken from Outer Wilds...?

I like Outer Wilds as well, but that's probably a formula that'd only work well in a small-ish hand-crafted space. I don't believe that'd transition well to an effectively static procedural system.

[Suppise]

I just made a post about this topic, so I’ll copy and paste that here and remove mine, to keep things tidy.

 

I love the story, but I feel like it’s far too fast paced, once you’ve done you first mun landing, all of the remaining missions are lore based, with huge steps in difficulty. There should be far more exploration missions mixed in with the current lore missions. Spoilers for primary missions: 

Spoiler

After the mun monument, you go straight to a precision minmus landing, then straight to a precision duna landing, then a precision tylo landing, each landing has a monumental increase in difficulty.

You should have to do a general duna landing before you discover the signal, and perhaps at jool you explore Laythe and Vall first before figuring out that the signal comes from Tylo. 

Regardless of how it’s done, there should be far more general exploration missions mixed in rather than them focusing solely on lore, showing the player more of the solar system, and slowing the pace down a bit, making the lore specific missions feel more monumental.

 

P.S. I do really like the idea of it being mechanical too, either way I think they should be spread out more in some way 

[Periple]

The most difficult one for me was the Duna one. Precision landings in an atmosphere without a plane or grid fins are hard. Bob ended up having to do a 4 km hike. 

[cubinator]

11 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

I like Outer Wilds as well, but that's probably a formula that'd only work well in a small-ish hand-crafted space. I don't believe that'd transition well to an effectively static procedural system.

I think you could have something hand-crafted surrounding the monuments, just to make sure the player isn't likely to get all the answers right away. It's different in that it's a much larger and emptier system, but similar in that there are several planets with a piece of the puzzle hidden on each.

[Bej Kerman]

14 minutes ago, cubinator said:

I think you could have something hand-crafted surrounding the monuments, just to make sure the player isn't likely to get all the answers right away. It's different in that it's a much larger and emptier system, but similar in that there are several planets with a piece of the puzzle hidden on each.

But then the magic of Outer Wilds' puzzles were how interconnected they were and how they were mostly tied into how the solar system evolved. Barring the puzzles themselves, clumps of lore and text were always within a minute of flight of each other, so then the player is exploring at their own pace, and when they find an interesting thread to unravel, they can immediately go onto unravelling it (if you're confident enough); you're right in that it's a much larger and emptier system - these puzzles aren't going to be tied into each other or interesting environmental challenges, and finding interesting things is going to be done between hours of doing what KSP is ACTUALLY known for - engineering challenges, designing rockets and navigating orbits. Put simply, I don't think the magic of Outer Wilds looks good on KSP. Sounds crazy given how fun Outer Wilds was, but in that game you wake up (spoiler alert for the uninitiated)

Spoiler

looking at a space station that forms a part of the time loop

, which you don't realise until further exploration. In KSP, the first thing you see on starting a save is the space center you'll be managing

Edited January 9 by Bej Kerman

[hatterson]

I think that doing polar scanning missions to locate the signals would be cool. It would also be a great reason to teach the player polar orbits and scanning for resources/colony location scouting. You could have it be optional so that if you know where it is you don't have to go through the rigamarole of scanning for it if you don't want where the mission is "go to the signal on Minmus, we haven't been able to locate it exactly but it's somewhere in this area. If you run a scanning mission in a polar orbit you'll ensure you scan the full surface of Minmus and definitely track it down exactly."

That said, my guess as to why the signals are directly given as opposed to discovered at this point is two fold. 1.) Scanning isn't in the game yet and isn't planned until at least colonies or resources so it makes sense to leave it out for now; and/or 2.) Missions to outside the Kerbin system take a while and going to Duna only to find out you need to go again can be demoralizing for the player

[Kerbart]

The ask is for “more planets so we have more places to go to.” At the same time, the current system is made up with planets that form a decent representation of what we have in our own system:

• The inner planets with clear equivalents
• A gas giant with many moons
• A ringed planet

Any additions would have to add something that is missing, I don’t see value in adding “yet another ___” and while some may applaud it, most of the players won’t, I assume. So the question then becomes “what is currently missing?” For instance:

• An asteroid belt, perhaps made from procedural generated asteroids. I'm not sure how it would work out performance wise, but it would be a great educational tool to show that it's really not the densely populated boulder field the average SF movie makes it out to be
• An Oort cloud where comets come from. Real comets in the sense that they have more going on than the ones we see in KSP1. But they move fast in highly elliptical orbits
• A second gas giant but with some added challenges. Like Jupiter it has high radiation, rendering antenna's close by useless and causing equipment to malfunction. Throw in an Enceladus-style moon (I know it's not a moon of Jupiter) where you can gather science by flying through a volcanic plume and maybe some picture opportunities for cool shots of one moon passing in front of the other.

I don't think adding more for the sake of adding more is the way to go, but adding other experiences is. Whether that should be stock or mods is a different story, but the base game should at least have the option to be able to add planets in a mod (I know nothing about modding planets so I'm not sure if that's an issue or not)

[Pthigrivi]

13 hours ago, Periple said:

The most difficult one for me was the Duna one. Precision landings in an atmosphere without a plane or grid fins are hard. Bob ended up having to do a 4 km hike. 

Totally. 4km is a darned good landing but an agonizing walk. Im currently sneaking in a science-only Moho mission so I can afford wheels to at least drive the last few km (there's a decent Moho window around day 130) I can't imagine many new players would think to do that or realize just how dV heavy that Moho capture burn is. Absolutely agree there should be a set of intermediary missions to help bridge those gaps, and that the actual monuments should be reordered: Minmus > Mun > Ike > Duna > Dres > Gilly > Moho > Vall > Laythe >Tylo > Eve. They should definitely also be considering what the launch window sequence is and time between launches, in transit etc. Some players are going to do one mission at a time sequentially but I think especially as colonies and resources get started and we have an alarm clock players are going to get used to multiple things happening at once, and those launch and transit times are going to become more and more important. 

On the broader point about scanning--absolutely. This goes to something Nate said early on about intrinsic vs extrinsic goals. There's value to both, but often just giving players some tools and a broad array of options creates the most dynamic kind of gameplay. If for instance they gave players an orbital scanner that could detect the non-monument, more geological discoverables they could play around with exploring and landing more accurately on Minmus before being asked to land in a specific location on the Mun. Not only would this give some more directions to go and better training for newer players but it creates more story build-up to that reveal. 

The other thing that would help would be biome maps. I think we definitely need a way to log where we've already been and already done and also have a clearer picture of where we might go next. The old science log in the R+D building in KSP1 was okay but pretty unwieldy. Ideally once you'd done a biome survey you could turn on an overlay in map mode, hover over a biome to know what it is, or right click on it to bring up a list of completed science there. That way you don't need to constantly jump buildings and loading screens. Its all right there in flight and in the tracking station.

Edited January 9 by Pthigrivi

[Steigleder]

Hi, I think that to make a return Moho mission is so difficult since the large amount of delta V is required; and the hydrogen tanks are not enough for the biggest nuclear motor.

[rayoyrayo]

I agree with all of the above 

My two cents:

1) Time spent on kerbin and its moons is too short. It would be advantageous to use that time to teach about rover design, satellites and their orbits and coms before even moving on to the mun or minmus. It increases the payoff you feel when you finally get to the mun and home.

 

2) I echo the sentiment that spending more time exploring each successfully landed on planet would increase the depth of the game.

 

3) Scanning element to game is absolutely necessary for monument discovery and again general depth.