Why careermode?

[Mr Shifty]

I see your point regarding SimCity, but for me at least, KSP is all about designing my own missions, figuring out how to achieve a goal. That's not the same as avoiding the inbuilt problems. It's about creating my own restrictions, deciding on my own goals, and deciding on how to reach them.

That's the game I want to see. Career could easily wait IMHO.

I actually agree with this. When I first bought the game a couple months ago, I was slightly annoyed that there wasn't a structured career mode, but now I doubt I'll ever play it except maybe to just check it out. The sandbox is a complete game in and of itself. I've played KSP more than any game I can remember and there's still tons that I haven't done/seen. The great thing though is that even though the devs are focusing a significant portion of their attention on a career mode that I don't care that much about, the mod community is very busy making the sandbox bigger and bigger and bigger. It's all good.

[Beeman]

I'm one of those people waiting for career mode. I really like sandbox mode, don't get me wrong and I like the freedoms that it provides.

However, I'd enjoy the game a LOT more if I were restricted by budget, crew skill, available parts. If I were forced to make my rockets in some way reusable to cut costs in the future or to have to science to help research things. That type of customizable progression is just fun for some of us, way moreso than just building whatever we want whenever we want with no negatives to making mistakes besides trying again with more struts. I want my failures to mean something and I want my space program to be impacted heavily when Bill, Jeb and Bob die. I'd really like it if I could customize their roles and skills. Maybe I want Bill collecting samples or doing science and Bob making repairs while Jeb just rocks out in space like a true champion. Maybe after a few missions with a particular novice, I feel like promoting him. I'd love to be able to do that, to have an in-built game mechanic where I can do that, especially if I can change his look in some way to show that he's my space program's rank two scientist.

Granted, a lot of that can easily be done and made compatible with sandbox mode...and probably would be if they were implemented. However, it doesn't carry the same impact as having a high-ranking kerbonaut die and suddenly you get a bit less funding due to bad PR. Or something like that.

I think what we all have to realize...that's already been pointed out, in-fact is that all of us want to play the game differently. Some like the freedom of sandbox and only want restrictions their mind can create....but a lot of us do indeed want in-built restrictions and customizable progression so each time we start a new save file, it'll be a little different to the last. So why can't we all be appeased? It's not like sandbox mode is going to vanish suddenly, so there's nothing for you to worry about. Meanwhile, those of us who have been waiting for career mode have been waiting over a year(for a lot of us, anyways) with almost zero career-specific implementations.

Them focusing on career mode right now is, as Harvester mentioned in the aforementioned blog, partly due to the amount of features they can get implemented with each patch with much less effort than would be required to keep tweaking flight or construction mechanics.

Besides, working on something a little different for a change has to feel good for them. It can get very grating to be doing the same thing and stressing about the exact same stuff over and over and over for months on-end. Let them enjoy implementing different things for a while, making speedy progress instead of struggling for weeks to implement something seemingly minor.

Edited August 7, 2013 by Beeman

[zarniw00p]

Besides, working on something a little different for a change has to feel good for them. It can get very grating to be doing the same thing and stressing about the exact same stuff over and over and over for months on-end. Let them enjoy implementing different things for a while, making speedy progress instead of struggling for weeks to implement something seemingly minor.

Squad has been talking about focusing on career mode for months, and in all this time we haven't seen anything substantial. Or am I missing something? As far as I know they haven't even announced what they are planning to include in career mode.

I just hope they get this done quickly and then start to focus on more important issues...

[jcraft]

Squad has been talking about focusing on career mode for months, and in all this time we haven't seen anything substantial. Or am I missing something? As far as I know they haven't even announced what they are planning to include in career mode.

Yes, you missing something - they started really focusing on career since last update (0.21). They added crew management and player progress tracking system in it and these are two of the key elements of the career mode (especially progress tracking). And considering informations from latest KSP Weekly in next update we going to get research system implemented into the game (which is another one of career mode key elements), and this is looking like really important core feature, as almost every content that is going to be added later into the game (like resource mining for example) must be built around and work with it.

Edited August 7, 2013 by jcraft
minor corrections

[Skorpion]

Speaking of resource mining, that's been started too: it's already designed on paper, and they even started doing some modelling for it a while ago. This was put on hold until other systems are developed (such as the tech tree, as jcraft mentioned).

Also, pure speculation on my part, but the recent code overhaul that allows the game to draw the space centre in-engine is going to be very important if we ever get the ability to build more space centres or orbital ship yards.

[SpaceHole]

I have to admit i dont really care about the Carreermode at all. It seems rather pointless in a game like KSP why limit yourself so much. Arent missions more than enough?

But in the end i dont care there probably are people who are looking forward to this - is there any poll on this forum?

What bothers me!

Anything within the game is loaded all the time at start - so will this new mode drastically increase loading time and take away space for mods for people that will never use this mode? Would it be possible to make Carreer mode optional when starting the game to reduce the loading time and ram-usage - or will it be pretty small anyhow?

[Beeman]

KSP was designed to be a space program simulator...to play like a tycoon game. The only reason we got sandbox first is because they had to make sure building rockets and flying rockets - the very core of the gameplay - was functional. Finally, they're focusing on career mode and yes, many of us are very excited. Some of us haven't even really been playing KSP because we've been waiting on career mode. Granted, I still break down and load it up now and again regardless...the less I know about flying and accomplishing things, the more fun career mode will be.

Also, really late reply to an old thread. Kinda funny >.>

But in regards to the memory limit, they'll undoubtedly fix that as well as many of the other lag problems we see right now in KSP. They talk to the Unity creators sometimes and KSP is one of the most successful Unity games out there so that alone should encourage the Unity guys to increase performance and at the very least, let physics calculations be handled by multiple cores.

That said, half the game's final features will probably be career mode stuff. Sandbox is fun, but I'll want to be discovering planets and actually gaining something in-game based on my successful missions, besides a screenshot or short story to tell my buddies. I want my missions to help my future missions. I want the game forcing me to squeeze what creativity I can muster out of my dense skull. It's just exciting to some of us. It'd be even better if they had various features you could toggle on and off or adjust via sliders...like income rate, advanced life support and so on. Then people could REALLY customize their game experience and play career mode exactly as they want to without having to hassle with or hope for mods to cover their needs.

[SpaceHole]

KSP was designed to be a space program simulator...to play like a tycoon game. The only reason we got sandbox first is because they had to make sure building rockets and flying rockets - the very core of the gameplay - was functional. Finally, they're focusing on career mode and yes, many of us are very excited. Some of us haven't even really been playing KSP because we've been waiting on career mode. Granted, I still break down and load it up now and again regardless...the less I know about flying and accomplishing things, the more fun career mode will be.

Also, really late reply to an old thread. Kinda funny >.>

But in regards to the memory limit, they'll undoubtedly fix that as well as many of the other lag problems we see right now in KSP. They talk to the Unity creators sometimes and KSP is one of the most successful Unity games out there so that alone should encourage the Unity guys to increase performance and at the very least, let physics calculations be handled by multiple cores.

That said, half the game's final features will probably be career mode stuff. Sandbox is fun, but I'll want to be discovering planets and actually gaining something in-game based on my successful missions, besides a screenshot or short story to tell my buddies. I want my missions to help my future missions. I want the game forcing me to squeeze what creativity I can muster out of my dense skull. It's just exciting to some of us. It'd be even better if they had various features you could toggle on and off or adjust via sliders...like income rate, advanced life support and so on. Then people could REALLY customize their game experience and play career mode exactly as they want to without having to hassle with or hope for mods to cover their needs.

Well the problem i see there - by limiting the parts you can use - and the money you can use - wont this more likely lead to less creativity and less experimenting?

I do understand what you want and i also would probably like parts of that yet i doubt things beyond bigger and longer missions will add much more to the game.

I actually believe that limiting the game both with research and money and longterm responsiblity will actually harm gameplay.

On the other hand some random events like a Kerbal building and flying his own rocket - stranding on a planet requesting for help with an emergency signal that gives XY time to rescue him would probably add some nice challenges.

Well we will see what they do.

Is there a real concept of the carreer mode out yet?

Edited August 23, 2013 by SpaceHole

[Superfluous J]

Well the problem i see there - by limiting the parts you can use - and the money you can use - wont this more likely lead to less creativity and less experimenting?

I do understand what you want and i also would probably like parts of that yet i doubt things beyond bigger and longer missions will add much more to the game.

I actually believe that limiting the game both with research and money and longterm responsiblity will actually harm gameplay.

I respectfully disagree. I was sick of vanilla KSP and decided I was just going to shelve it because once I got a manned return ship to Mun and another to Moho there was really nothing left to do. Sure I could go to Jool and... have done that too. But there was nothing to DO there.

3 days later I couldn't stand it and had to play more KSP. So I wiped my boring old save, installed Kethane and Extraplanetary launchpads, and and now mapping Kirbin and Mun for kethane deposits. Once I have mining operations set up I'll start thinking about making bases, but just having that goal is enough to get me back into the game. I taught myself how to launch into a polar orbit around Kirbin, and also how to launch directly to Mun (and enter a polar orbit there) because of this, and if I had a limited budget of parts and fuel it would have spurned me to be even more creative.

I'm SO ready for career mode. Lay it on me, Squad.

[SpaceHole]

I respectfully disagree. I was sick of vanilla KSP and decided I was just going to shelve it because once I got a manned return ship to Mun and another to Moho there was really nothing left to do. Sure I could go to Jool and... have done that too. But there was nothing to DO there.

3 days later I couldn't stand it and had to play more KSP. So I wiped my boring old save, installed Kethane and Extraplanetary launchpads, and and now mapping Kirbin and Mun for kethane deposits. Once I have mining operations set up I'll start thinking about making bases, but just having that goal is enough to get me back into the game. I taught myself how to launch into a polar orbit around Kirbin, and also how to launch directly to Mun (and enter a polar orbit there) because of this, and if I had a limited budget of parts and fuel it would have spurned me to be even more creative.

I'm SO ready for career mode. Lay it on me, Squad.

I actually agree with this but i think carreer-mode is neither the bet nor the only way to stop this from happening.

Hmm on the other hand - well lets just say i will look into what they will actually do with it. Still i see a lot of things that cold go wrong

[Beeman]

Fortunately for you, sandbox mode isn't going anywhere and probably won't have most of the career mode features(like crew training, R&D, discovering planets, and so on). But for me...having limitations on what you can use actually pushes me to create interesting and functional designs with those limited parts.

Like, if you have unlimited resources, anyone can make outrageous stuff...but if you can take two shades of blue and somehow turn it into a meaningful piece of art, wouldn't that show more creativity than the person who used a full pallet?

Besides, in career mode, I"m going to have to think beyond just making rockets that go places. I'm going to have to cram communications systems and science equipment on there as well as trying to make as much of it salvageable as possible to save on expenses per launch.

Functional and efficient creativity is just as impressive to some of us as wild and superfluous creativity is to others. There's even some of us who appreciate both and will probably play both career and sandbox mode. Aw yeah gettin' exponentially more out of a twenty dollar game than most sixty dollar games have to offer~