Why "Revert Flight" is not a good option for KSP

[Szkeptik]

Many neat things came with 0.21, but as I thought about the revert mechanic I found it to be restrictive in terms of gameplay.

What happens when you revert flight? Everything you did gets rolled back, deleted like it never happened and you get another go at it. Why is this a problem?

This game will play with a budget when it's finished. This means you have to buy every part of the ship you build. Now of course many would say reverting flights is good precisely because it saves you from losing large amounts of money at a single mistake. I see it the other way around. It will take the challenge and fun out of the game, since you can just undo any mistake you made and lose nothing but the playtime you put into flying the mission. If you think about it, with this mechanic losing anything at all will be entirely optional.

A crew member died? Revert and go again. Tried to dock and crashed into the space station? Revert and not only will you have a new go at it, but the station will also be reverted to an unharmed state.

The only reason to take the hit is if the lost gametime would be too much. For example, a long term Jool mission fails, but you already started two other flights since you launched it and all would have to be reverted because you screwed up that Jool aerobrake. That doesn't sound fun so you just write that Jool probe off.

If you revert you can just salvage the ship instead of flying the mission again. You won't lose a dime. Unless a long mission has been going on forever and you would wreck half your space program by reverting it, reverting is an absolute "get out of jail free card" that you can play over and over.

How much more awesome would it be if you had to send a rescue ship to that space station to get the survivors home safely, then send up a repair crew to fix and salvage what they can?

My suggestion is that reverting should only be an option in the first few minutes of the flight, so you could test new designs and see if they can be launched in one piece. But after the first 5-6 minutes, reverting would not be possible anymore. What you launced you launched.

Edited August 5, 2013 by Szkeptik

[Monkeh]

The problem is what happens if the rescue mission goes wrong...and then the rescue of the rescue mission goes wrong. Feel free to ad infinitum here but eventually I'll...I mean, you'll have no money left. No parts left to build anything. No inclination to continue with playing. No fun. Sounds horrible.

The balance between a failed mission crippling your agency for ever and reversion being too easy, is a tough one. I see regular investments from benevolent benefactors or governments to be a workaround maybe.

In Squad we trust.

[Themohawkninja]

I've always thought that you shouldn't be given the option to revert after your parent probe core/CM explodes. It is way to easy to get out screwing everything up.

[Themohawkninja]

The problem is what happens if the rescue mission goes wrong...and then the rescue of the rescue mission goes wrong. Feel free to ad infinitum here but eventually I'll...I mean, you'll have no money left. No parts left to build anything. No inclination to continue with playing. No fun. Sounds horrible.

The balance between a failed mission crippling your agency for ever and reversion being too easy, is a tough one. I see regular investments from benevolent benefactors or governments to be a workaround maybe.

In Squad we trust.

True, there is the possibility of infinite recursion of screwing up, but your rescue craft will probably be much different than the one that needs rescued, which means it has a completely different way that it flies, maneuvers, and consumes fuel, so you can't base the result of craft B's fate, from craft A's fate.

[itsme86]

I don't recall anyone saying that the new "revert flight" system will be used for career mode. It could very well be restricted to sandbox mode where it makes perfect sense to me.

[boomerdog2000]

It seems the revert feature is mainly for launch when things are more likely to go wrong.

[CaptainBlue]

I recall there is a feature that turns certain features on or off and changes certain feature variables that was proposed for this feature called "Career Mode". And I remember it was called:"Difficulty Setting." was it? I might have gotten this wrong someone please correct me!!!

Sarcasm aside, I guess they will probably have a difficulty option when you start a save game for career mode. Hopefully. (Quite obvious they will, but it is more work to balance it out.)

Edited August 5, 2013 by CaptainBlue

[Pursuedtank]

I'm surprised that nobody has said this, but as soon as you stop focusing on the ship after launch, you can't revert it. So it is not an all powerful tool. Besides the restart flight button that we used to have did exactly the same thing, it reverted back to the launch and put everything back how it was.

[ravener]

I'm surprised that nobody has said this, but as soon as you stop focusing on the ship after launch, you can't revert it. So it is not an all powerful tool. Besides the restart flight button that we used to have did exactly the same thing, it reverted back to the launch and put everything back how it was.

It did?

I allways reverted to the vab as it allways reset the time, dident know normal end flight did too.

[Tw1]

I think it makes perfect sense.

Unless you're launching and flying whole missions in one go, it's already pretty limited in what it can do.

It's perfect for testing something again and again and again, without debris building up at the space center, that must be later cleared away.

And I often do tests that last ten min or longer.

[Diche Bach]

I don't recall anyone saying that the new "revert flight" system will be used for career mode. It could very well be restricted to sandbox mode where it makes perfect sense to me.

That is what I expected to. If Revert is strictly for sandbox and not accessible (without modding/hacking) in career mode, then seems quite useful to me.

[Anton P. Nym]

Punishing players for not getting things right the first time is (at least in my opinion) completely against the KSP ethos of "cut-and-try" rocketry. I would vehemently oppose removing "revert flight"-like features from KSP; perhaps make that am option for experienced players who want a greater challenge, but the game won't do well if it punishes new players for failing.

-- Steve

In the Kerbal Space Program, failure is always an option.

[Faark]

I'm pretty sure it was especially designed with career mode in mind. Its perfectly there to test stuff, launch sth and have some fun. For larger missions you most likely have to dock somewhere or switch flights, what afaik breaks "revert flight", anyway.

I like it.

The only thing i really dislike atm is, that i cannot "End flight" to see that event log... and pls do not say i have to check some cheat-menu-logs^^

[shand]

revert is (supposedly) only active until you change focus. also there are different expectations. a high budget game (real lifey sized budgets of several billion) would not need revert - but you would be forced to reuse tried and tested designs. like create a standard launcher, which may detract from the game. smaller -per budget- budgets would need revert and encourage creativity and risk taking. Considering the gaming market these days is a savefest i fully expect the later to be in the game, perhaps with the former as a "extra hard mode"

But at this stage in development i feel it is an improvement over the previous system.

[Anton P. Nym]

The only thing i really dislike atm is, that i cannot "End flight" to see that event log... and pls do not say i have to check some cheat-menu-logs^^

The F3 key will bring up the event log at any time, and also pause the game so you can read it; you don't need to end the flight to see what the heck just caused that side booster to "leave formation" and go off on its own...

-- Steve

[Sean Mirrsen]

You can always press F3 to see the flight log.

And like people above have said, the availability of Revert Flight will likely be dependent on the difficulty setting. It's already pretty restrictive as it is, so it will work alright as a default difficulty, with Hard having it disabled or time-limited.

[jcraft]

And like people above have said, the availability of Revert Flight will likely be dependent on the difficulty setting. It's already pretty restrictive as it is, so it will work alright as a default difficulty, with Hard having it disabled or time-limited.

Yes, Harvester talked about that some time ago (if I remember correctly in his "Rethinking the way flights end" blog entry) - blocking player from using "Revert Flight" option almost for certain will be available as difficulty setting.

Edited August 5, 2013 by jcraft

[Scoundrel]

Personally, IMHO, the revert flight button is fine as it is. The type of person who would "send a rescue mission" is exactly the type of person who wouldn't use it, while those who don't want to deal with the loss of a ship or deal with the loss of a kerbal(s) are the type who would force quit the game and restart it rather than lose that kerbal, and thus the revert option is perfect for them. I don't see how reducing options enhances gameplay, since it's the player's decision that determines if that function is used or not. Now, if it was automatic then I could see the argument, but in this case it isn't. I don't really see how dictating gameflow based on nothing more than speculation and conjecture benefits anyone. Heck, even HarvesteR isn't sure how exactly he's going to implement career mode at the moment. Perhaps the "revert flight" option will cost money or something else we haven't thought of. So why not hold our horses until we actually get a glimpse of what Squad has planned and then revisit the topic?

[MrKicker]

Due to obviose reasons, I SUPER HIGHLY doubt this will be availible in carier mode.The only time I would think it would be useable in carear mode is if you go bankrupt. However due to the need to test craft before officialy launching them, I think there should be a simulation mode.

[Devo]

Punishing players for not getting things right the first time is (at least in my opinion) completely against the KSP ethos of "cut-and-try" rocketry. I would vehemently oppose removing "revert flight"-like features from KSP; perhaps make that am option for experienced players who want a greater challenge, but the game won't do well if it punishes new players for failing.

-- Steve

In the Kerbal Space Program, failure is always an option.

^ this.

The entire point of this game is experimentation, to not allow players to repeat processes to research and correct mistakes, would pretty much take all the fun out of it. People would just be building rockets that did the job and not really experimenting as much.

[Frederf]

Reversion and termination are not mutually exclusive. I don't know why we can't have both at the same time. For me the distasteful part of reversion is that it means the flight never happened time-wise. 99 test 10-minute test flights followed by one 10-minute real flight takes a grand total of 10 minutes of game time instead of 1000.

For game balance the answer is easy, have the player pre-declare if the flight will be "for realzies" or not. Thus you can simulate to your hearts content but your results won't persist until you launch fo' realz. Once a real launch is committed to, the player is stuck with the results.

[Superfluous J]

I have always assumed that career mode wouldn't have a revert option. The idea would be that you would build and test stuff in sandbox mode and only when you were really sure of it, you'd fly it "for real" in career mode.

I just hope at that point (or before it), sandbox mode will have some sort of "start me in Mun orbit" option so I can test my munar lander without spending the 30 minutes getting it there, which I know I can do with 100% accuracy.

[Yourself]

I have always assumed that career mode wouldn't have a revert option. The idea would be that you would build and test stuff in sandbox mode and only when you were really sure of it, you'd fly it "for real" in career mode.

I just hope at that point (or before it), sandbox mode will have some sort of "start me in Mun orbit" option so I can test my munar lander without spending the 30 minutes getting it there, which I know I can do with 100% accuracy.

I'm with this suggestion. I always envisioned that you'd have simulated runs which could be reverted or restarted because they're simulations and then you'd go off and do the actual flight. I like this because it gives some motivation for planning failure modes, but doesn't throw you under the bus by never giving you the chance to actually test them.

I also kind of like the idea that you could start in Mun orbit (or any planet), but only after you've sent satellites to measure its properties (like gravitational strength and what-not). Maybe you'd be allowed to start at any planet initially but the estimates of gravity wouldn't be accurate. In any case I like the idea of there being some motivation to science the hell out of planets.

[chaos_forge]

My suggestion is that reverting should only be an option in the first few minutes of the flight, so you could test new designs and see if they can be launched in one piece. But after the first 5-6 minutes, reverting would not be possible anymore. What you launced you launched.

Once you return to the space center or dock with another craft for the first time, revert stops being an option. So the situation you described would only be possible in the simplest of missions.

[Levelord]

Punishing players for not getting things right the first time is (at least in my opinion) completely against the KSP ethos of "cut-and-try" rocketry. I would vehemently oppose removing "revert flight"-like features from KSP; perhaps make that am option for experienced players who want a greater challenge, but the game won't do well if it punishes new players for failing.

-- Steve

In the Kerbal Space Program, failure is always an option.

^ this.

The entire point of this game is experimentation, to not allow players to repeat processes to research and correct mistakes, would pretty much take all the fun out of it. People would just be building rockets that did the job and not really experimenting as much.

I would like to share this sentiment as well. People, especially the newer community members tend to treat the game as if it's a competitive tool, instead of a platform to learn and experiment.