A more complex progression system.

[Guest]

When i first saw the new system underway for a tech tree, while exciting at first i noticed something that was a huge letdown for me. This letdown was the "science points". From my understanding whenever you do something a certain amount of "science points" are given to you based on the difficulty of the task. While this seems like a good idea on the surface it actually has a host of underlying problems.

1. It enforces that certain areas, tasks, and planets are less important than others effectively telling the user-base some of the content is no longer important after a certain progression level.

2. It oversimplifies what could be a much more interesting and rewarding system.

Proposed modifications:

1. Different actions give different modifications to abilities and materials

2. No "Tiering" system -

Tiers are one of the worst ideas in the gaming industry in my opinion because as a developer you are effectively making material nobody will use after a certain period of time.

Instead of focusing on making certain objects better than others you give them roles where they excel and the ability to modify them after a certain task is done to further excel at that role.

To illustrate these points I will give a couple examples with what I understand the science points system will cause.

Science points system - Imagine the mun gives you far less science points then jool but is easier to get to. In a tiered system you just grind past the mun with whatever you have until you can get to jool. It's basically making players walk through the sewers to get to the palace, and nobody likes the sewers.

Now imagine a more complex non-tiered system -

"Extensive research on the mun allows for better gripping of wheels in low gravity environments - the chance of flipping rovers is reduced"

"Scientist have made breakthroughs in space-plane research using the probe you sent to jool as a testbed in the complex thick atmosphere - all wing surfaces now have better handling"

With this system neither the mun nor jool can be rated better for "science points" because each one plays a role and both are required to make full use of your materials.

My overall point is that you want players to fully explore the world around them, and to do that you have to make different areas important for different reasons. Science points are not capable of this.

[wasmic]

I'm not quite sure how it will work, actually. I think it might be something with science points, but different kkinds of science points, depending on where you get them. Why would they else add biomes ot Kerbin?

[Guest]

Keep in mind, the information I have at hand is limited and I doubt the direction of development is absolute but the phrase "science points" alone is worrying.

[DoomtrainInc]

I was wondering the same thing myself. It feels like it would be best if there are specific reasons to go to different locations. Even if they are divided up as simply as by Planetoid: Kerbin Sci Pts / Mun Sci Pts. / Minmus Sci Pts. This division could be even more specific with the new Biomes system they are introducing. Then research requirements may require a certain amount of points from different categories like was mentioned above (Desert Science = rover upgrades, etc.). The more detailed they make it the better!

[boomerdog2000]

Maybe after a certain point science points around a certain body wouldn't work for certain upgrades. Kind of an "We've learned all we can about this for now."

[allmappedout]

There are already a couple of discussions similarly themed at the moment.

I am hoping for a very deep and rewarding system. Whilst I don't expect it to necessarily be in the first iteration, there's a lot of potential there and I hope that some of these ideas are taken on board.

[rkman]

Tiers are one of the worst ideas in the gaming industry in my opinion because as a developer you are effectively making material nobody will use after a certain period of time.

That i agree with, and although i'm not sure it would be as much of an issue in KSP as it is with certain other games (notably mmorpgs), i do hope KSP's progression system will be such that it won't be much of an issue.

I think it might be something with science points, but different kinds of science points, depending on where you get them.

Doesn't look like there will be different kinds of science points:

"... Science in the game is being implemented as a sort of "currency". ...We decided against having specific experiments affecting specific branches of science..."

- HarvesteR - http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/entries/971-Doing-Science-Celestial-Body-Biomes!/page4#comments

[allmappedout]

Doesn't look like there will be different kinds of science points:

"... Science in the game is being implemented as a sort of "currency". ...We decided against having specific experiments affecting specific branches of science..."

- HarvesteR - http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/entries/971-Doing-Science-Celestial-Body-Biomes!/page4#comments

Pleased as punch that Harv answered my questions!

Shame, but I'm sure it'll work out well enough - the second point I raised in the questions seems to be much more positive news about how the experiments you can perform are dependent on where you are and what you're doing. It makes me wonder whether there is a list of possible mission types you can undertake, or whether you're free to fire something off to somewhere and run a set of experiments and get science regardless of whether you had a plan in the first place ie: I'm at moho...might as well scan for an atmosphere! Oh there isn't one, never mind! SCIENCE!

I guess it's a valid experiment...

And there's the question of repeatability. I was discussing in another thread about instrument quality and whether this affects the level of science you unlock. Another way of looking at it is the resolution of such discoveries; perhaps scanning the mun early on from 100km with a rubbish camera will give you some grainy photos, but you could launch a later device with higher quality instruments and make detailed readings of the trace atmosphere and take high-rest photos with 50cm resolution, etc.

Particularly the latter part of that, it is essentially the same experiment, but different end result. I suppose the concern is would it be spammable (ie: is there a rate of return curve?) and even if not, are there some missions which are more valuable than others? ie: for a given mission cost can I get to Minmus and get more science than the Mun, or can I do it for cheaper, or in less time, etc etc