Primary Missions should be focused more on Exploration instead of Lore

[Suppise]

The current primary missions focus too much on the monument storyline lore, leaving little to no room for the rest of the solar system, which makes them feel more empty. For a game mode called “Exploration”, you don’t seem to do much of it. The kerbolar System is stunning in this game, they should show it off.

I think the primary missions could benefit from shifting their focus from lore to exploration. This shows off the beauty of the Solar system, while making the lore feel more rare and special. Each planet and moon should have a dedicated primary mission, exploring what makes each respective body unique. Each and every body has a different set of challenges associated with it, so exploring those challenges teaches the player how to design crafts for specific destinations, a very important set of concepts and skills.

This would slow down the pace of the alien story line, and make each discovery feel more special, unexpected, and immersive; as you share the emotions of the kerbals. Currently the primary missions send you only to places that have a monument, making them lose their sense of unexpected adventure. When it sends you to minmus/duna/jool straight after the last monument discovery, you are already expecting to find another one. You don’t feel like you’re discovering these for yourself, and they take away from the experience of landing on these bodies for the first time, as they are overshadowed by these discoveries.

If you go to duna as a testament of the kerbal spirit, becoming a multiplanetay species, and then finding a strange signal/interference after the fact, you feel like you’ve discovered this for yourself, in addition to landing on another planet for the first time. Going to jool should start off as an expedition to explore joolian moons, not to find the source of a signal for the 4th time in a row.

After the mun monument, the missions shift from “Kerbal firsts” to “send probe, land at monument, repeat”. Each time you go somewhere you already know you’ll find something, so it doesn’t feel as special.

It should be “hey let’s land on duna, the first interplanetary mission!” Then after landing there, you get “hey while we were at duna we picked up some strange interference, send a probe into a polar orbit to search for this interference”, then “oh hey we found the source, it appears to be up north, go send a rover to investigate” etc etc. Sending the probe into a polar orbit could also teach players about how polar orbits are useful for precise landings, as you pass over everywhere on the planet as it rotates under you.

The final primary mission should be an eve return mission, doubling down on its “final boss” reputation. You’ve got all the experience of the rest of the kerbolar system under your belt, everything has been leading up to this. You want to prove that you can conquer your own solar system before you venture out into the stars, where the monuments have been leading you. You want to prove to your celestial cousins that you are ready.

 

This exploration focused primary mission set would also compliment the secondary missions, which focus a lot on doing precise landings, sending cargo, large crews, etc, all things that people tend to do after initial landings. The primary missions mean players are already familiar with all the celestial bodies’ characteristics and challenges, allowing them to better plan missions to these places with the skills they have developed throughout their save.

 

Overall I think a more exploration focused primary mission set would feel more fulfilling as you complete them, showing off the full kerbolar system, teaching the player all the skills they need to visit these bodies on their own or in the secondary missions, while also making the lore story line feel more immersive and exciting. It’s called “Exploration mode” after all.

Edited January 27 by Suppise

[Jaypeg]

Its fine at the start, but I think maybe there should just be more filler between the mun and duna and etc

[DibzNr]

Yeah, after the Mun monument it does feel like the primary missions completely shift away from general progress altogether, it's very jarring going straight from the Minmus monument to the Duna monument with no general "land on Duna" mission in-between.

[The Aziz]

And sure enough but... You can just test the ground, if your current tech and skill even allows you to land there - and only then attempt the mission. The reason for them to exist is to guide you across the system, and more importantly, to reward you with science points. The main missions don't lead you anywhere because they don't have to, their rewards are big enough to give you the required technology for the final one, which is Tylo. But also - in any other game with open world, main quests also don't lead you to every place on the map. That's what the sidequests are for. And here they are, doing just that. Besides, considering what's gonna happen next, them ending on the far edges of the system and not on Eve, makes total sense. Eve is that annoying escort kind of mission. Tylo is the final boss because landing there, on target, after flying around 2 other moons, is challenging. But also, there are gaps, I'm sure for colony parts. So even more sidequests are ahead, to fill the gaps. In progression, and in tech tree.

[kdaviper]

4 minutes ago, The Aziz said:

And sure enough but... You can just test the ground, if your current tech and skill even allows you to land there - and only then attempt the mission. The reason for them to exist is to guide you across the system, and more importantly, to reward you with science points. The main missions don't lead you anywhere because they don't have to, their rewards are big enough to give you the required technology for the final one, which is Tylo. But also - in any other game with open world, main quests also don't lead you to every place on the map. That's what the sidequests are for. And here they are, doing just that. Besides, considering what's gonna happen next, them ending on the far edges of the system and not on Eve, makes total sense. Eve is that annoying escort kind of mission. Tylo is the final boss because landing there, on target, after flying around 2 other moons, is challenging. But also, there are gaps, I'm sure for colony parts. So even more sidequests are ahead, to fill the gaps. In progression, and in tech tree.

To add to this, there will likely be missions built around the colony progression as well. The "land a ship of xxx tons on Y celestial body" missions, as somebody pointed out, could have a much more practical role when colony parts are implemented. 

On another note, I took a big mission to dres and I can tell you the devs did not forget about that one. I think it has some of my favorite terrain generation so far.  Also... Fantastic place to harvest some serious science. 

[The Aziz]

12 minutes ago, kdaviper said:

The "land a ship of xxx tons on Y celestial body" missions, as somebody pointed out, could have a much more practical role when colony parts are implemented. 

They are about as pointless as KSP1's "send a probe with a single landing leg to a *random orbit* to test it". Since 98% of that mass will be, inevitably, fuel tanks, it's just a test how big your lifter and landing stage can be. For colonies it would have to change to "send *a useful part* to the destination to set up/expand a colony". Fuel is just fuel, I bet methalox will be the easiest resource to find and extract.

And yeah they haven't forgotten about any of the planets. Moho has multiple missions, so does Minmus, Duna, with some careful planning you can complete 3 different missions in Jool system in one go.. I haven't explored all of it yet and I'm ready for some challenges. Well, except those chonky missions, they're useless.

Edited January 27 by The Aziz

[Jaypeg]

4 hours ago, The Aziz said:

They are about as pointless as KSP1's "send a probe with a single landing leg to a *random orbit* to test it". Since 98% of that mass will be, inevitably, fuel tanks, it's just a test how big your lifter and landing stage can be. For colonies it would have to change to "send *a useful part* to the destination to set up/expand a colony". Fuel is just fuel, I bet methalox will be the easiest resource to find and extract.

And yeah they haven't forgotten about any of the planets. Moho has multiple missions, so does Minmus, Duna, with some careful planning you can complete 3 different missions in Jool system in one go.. I haven't explored all of it yet and I'm ready for some challenges. Well, except those chonky missions, they're useless.

There are no missions for vall sadly

ksp is all about making cool solutions to problems, planning them, then completing them. I feel ksp 2's missions could reflect this by having more difficult/wacky missions that require more thought imo

[Superfluous J]

I 100% believe they are going to add a LOT of missions over the course of early access. They just put in the bare minimum here to get things going.

I do though like the idea that the stuff that is currently the Main missions instead be a set of side missions, while the Main missions be more general stuff.