Late game development

[Harguinxx]

I played KSP for a while, and I thing that right now this game have a late game problem. The game needs, in my opinion, features that make you feel the progress by seeing how your universe change trough your gameplay.

There are several good ideas around there, and I'm sure that the tech tree and the resources will help a lot, but I also think that would be very interesting if they add the possibility to add useful things to a colony base or an space station, to build bigger things, and maybe an space elevator, or colonial launch system...

What do you think KSP needs for having a great late game experience???

(and yes, I know that is too early in the game for expecting a proper gameplay experience, and more having only the sandbox mode, but we can discuss about that, do we??)

[Knas]

Achievements Though they have stated that end-game will not have achievments, which is just stupid.

[Harguinxx]

Achievements Though they have stated that end-game will not have achievments, which is just stupid.

It's a pity, the achievement system motivate a lot of people to play a game until the end and do a lot of impossible things in the later game.... I personally don't care about the achievements... but I'm sorry for the ones who do.

[allmappedout]

It's a pity, the achievement system motivate a lot of people to play a game until the end and do a lot of impossible things in the later game.... I personally don't care about the achievements... but I'm sorry for the ones who do.

Two things, how can you achieve something that's impossible?

Secondly, why have achievements anyway? All it motivates you to do is to do some specific thing once, and then move on, at the expense of, usually, doing other things.

I have nothing against achievements per se, but for an open game like this, it seems to funnel energies to something that provides nothing that isn't already there. All you need is stats and figures to measure things, such as what has recently been introduced with the latest persistence files.

An example: I reach the Mun in my first save. It takes me a while. Great, I have now 'Reached the Mun'. But what if I want to reach the Mun quicker, or with a larger lander? or even a smaller lander? What's my incentive then to try, if the game is focussed on achievements? The next logical thing I would do is land on Minmus. Tick that box, move on.

Achievements usually turn a game into a grind, unless they're clever and outside the box, and typically even then they only work if you stumble across them unexpectedly (ie: experience 15G forces on your space craft whilst having no reaction wheel power - 'OUT OF CONTROL', etc). Poor example, but you get my point. An achievement can be measured without being a driver for the game mechanic.

I would prefer just a list of funny things that the game could monitor (I believe there was a thread pre-forum crash dedicated to this), like comparing Kerbal deaths, or longest Kerbal faceplant, etc.

[jwenting]

well said, achievements are only for those who can't think for themselves. And people who can't think for themselves are unlikely to get very far in KSP where you need to think about what you do.

Unless of course the achievements are for missions where you're given prebuilt rockets, ready made trajectories, etc. etc. so there's no thinking needed.

[Matt56]

Well, this discussion got derailed fast... I think there are lots of late game options that are either planned or are part of current mods. We've got things like kethane and the planned resources and mining feature, which will push you to explore the farthest reaches of the Kerbol system. There's also the extraplanetary launch mod, which helps make colonies a viable option. I think there are lots of things in the pipe to make the game interesting even in the later stages. Once they're fleshed out of course.

[Nachtwind]

When i began reading this thread i was thinking "not another of these threads.." but actually.. yes, you have some pretty nice ideas there. Its a nice thought that what you do might change the "universe"... but i think that most of what you talked about was already to confirmed to come up until 1.0 like resources and (if i remember from some livestreams correctly) extraplanetary launchpads..

[Holo]

well said, achievements are only for those who can't think for themselves. And people who can't think for themselves are unlikely to get very far in KSP where you need to think about what you do.

Unless of course the achievements are for missions where you're given prebuilt rockets, ready made trajectories, etc. etc. so there's no thinking needed.

I want achievements to be in Kerbal Space Program, and I in fact use a mod to make achievements. I've landed a man on Duna and build a 25 ton space station. An artificial satellite of mine orbits over the north pole of Bop. I've driven a rover of 18 tons miles across the surface of Minmus.

Pretty good for someone who can't think for themselves.

[Beeman]

There's not going to be xbox/steam achievements, no. There will, however, some means of showcasing your accomplishments in the game. They'd talked about a museum that might house successful crafts or just showcase your achievements in some slightly meaningful way and on top of that, there's the knowledgebase which seems to function like an encyclopedia that you fill out by doing science and discovering planets and such. So you will see progress and notice it throughout your career. You just won't get achievements popping up through steam or whatever ;P

That said, the endgame for career mode was said to be faster than light travel...using some kind of warp drive to travel to a solar system that you'd discovered via...I don't know, orbital telescopes or something(which I would LOVE to build and use). There were supposed to be a couple predefined solar systems near the Kerbol system that would be the same for everyone so you could share those first FTL trip stories and experiences with each other using specified planets and such, like we have now. THEN there were supposed to be procedurally generated solar systems beyond those near to kerbin, I guess just to give you more things to do.

But who knows if they've changed their minds on that stuff. Sounded really good, truth be told and I'd love to see that type of endgame for KSP. Just seems perfect.

[innovine]

Implicit achievements are much better. For instance, the easter eggs provide several very interesting 'achievements', finding them, precision landing on them, or landing a rover nearby and driving to them, etc. Finding out what they are and getting there has provided me with loads of mission ideas and adventures.

These kind of carrots are very good for driving the gameplay when done right.

Orbital construction yards would probably be an interesting driver for late game development. Right now I find myself flying (always manually, no mechjeb) modules and rovers and fuel tanks, and rendezvousing and docking them in LKO to build a bigger interplanetary ship. It's getting very routine. Career mode should probably recognize this and eventually say "ok, he knows how to get 25ton masses to orbit, lets have our Kerbal engineers come up with an autopiloted lifter capable of doing that". And by autopilot i don't mean mechjeb, I mean something that I don't need to sit through and watch. One idea might be that I'm flying a little tug around my orbital dockyard, and request a delivery of a particular module which I built and saved in the VAB. Then a little while later an automated lifter arrives and drops the module a few km from my construction site.

[Harguinxx]

The only point I can see to achievements is to share it with your friends, competing with them in that way, since there won't be a multiplayer.