Probes before Kerbonauts...

[Gambi]

If people want to keep the Kerbal-factor for probes, how about having a view of mission control during probe operations: instead of one or three suited Kerbals in a ship, how about three shirtsleeve Kerbals in mission control reacting to their telemetry?

I guess it would be fairly easy to implement: instead of having an internal space in the capsule have an internal space in some dislocated volume (behind the camera?) and remember to turn off camera shake and "death"!

That is one very good idea.

[CatKnight]

That is one very good idea.

It is. I'd be all for it.

Also, consider WHY those three kerbals are special: Because for a long time they were all we had. For a long time we could blow Jeb to pieces and he'd be back five minutes later as happy as can be. That's no longer true: Jeb is often near the top of my list of Kerbals killed now, and he doesn't come back - hard to build an attachment then.

Honestly, I strongly disagree with the sentiment the Kerbals aren't trying for safety. I don't think they're very good at it, but that doesn't mean the effort isn't there. It's hard to imagine a society that would cheerfully fling its Kerbals into space without some sort of idea of what to expect - or at least a society that isn't fundamentally disturbed. Perhaps one that flings its condemned criminals around. "Figure out how to fly this thing and you can go free, otherwise mwahahahaha"

While this is a game, it's a game that's giving us a taste of space flight and the challenges you encounter. Of course it isn't a NASA simulator or meant to be all inclusive, but I think we can at least get the fundamental order of events right.

Plus, once you figure out that probes benefit from electricity and a battery, I find them easier than manned missions - and seeing the Stayputnik deploy its solar panels from a stable orbit for the first time is pretty cool, especially if you remembered to give it three comm antennas like Sputnik.

I'd be all for shirt sleeved Kerbals watching the probes go up, or even a spaceplane tutorial with Jeb and a 'stock' X-15

[Zaeo]

If people want to keep the Kerbal-factor for probes, how about having a view of mission control during probe operations: instead of one or three suited Kerbals in a ship, how about three shirtsleeve Kerbals in mission control reacting to their telemetry?

I guess it would be fairly easy to implement: instead of having an internal space in the capsule have an internal space in some dislocated volume (behind the camera?) and remember to turn off camera shake and "death"!

You.

Are.

Genious!

This Deserves its own Suggestion thread!

When probe goes pop, you get facepalm Animation from one of them...

[Teodzero]

If people want to keep the Kerbal-factor for probes, how about having a view of mission control during probe operations: instead of one or three suited Kerbals in a ship, how about three shirtsleeve Kerbals in mission control reacting to their telemetry?

I guess it would be fairly easy to implement: instead of having an internal space in the capsule have an internal space in some dislocated volume (behind the camera?) and remember to turn off camera shake and "death"!

Brilliant. Jeb with a joystick in hands!

Plus, once you figure out that probes benefit from electricity and a battery, I find them easier than manned missions - and seeing the Stayputnik deploy its solar panels from a stable orbit for the first time is pretty cool, especially if you remembered to give it three comm antennas like Sputnik.

Sputnik had four comm antennas, not three.

[Kerbart]

Watch a handful of movies and answer the following questions:

• How many times do you see the main character go to the bathroom
  
• How many times do you see the main character brush his teeth
  
• How many times do you see the main character prepare breakfast, eat it, clean up and do the dishes?
  
• And the list goes on...
  

Reality is most of the time boring. KSP is a game. It's not meant to simulate reality in a painstaking way. Of course you can start with unmanned probes. But why stop there with mimicking reality? Let's start with flight. And with that I don't mean jet engines, I mean unmotorized flight. And maybe balloons. Let people earn their wings, that is more realistic!

Forcing people to grind through probes is intuitive; I'm glad the devs had the flexibility in mind to go for interesting gameplay instead of mindlessly copying reality.

[Monkeh]

If people want to keep the Kerbal-factor for probes, how about having a view of mission control during probe operations: instead of one or three suited Kerbals in a ship, how about three shirtsleeve Kerbals in mission control reacting to their telemetry?

I guess it would be fairly easy to implement: instead of having an internal space in the capsule have an internal space in some dislocated volume (behind the camera?) and remember to turn off camera shake and "death"!

Great idea up here. Please start new thread, thank you.

Career mode should have a certain amount of logic and balance between realism and the "Kerbal way".

And having manned pods before probes is a kick in the face to HUMAN logic.

I edited your comment because I had a word with Professor Herbal Von Kerbal of the University of Splode on Kerbin and he had this to say:

"Please tell your ill informed pinky or browny skinned monkey descendant to leave us Kerbals to our own logic and ways of doing things. When you evolve from something similar to your 'frog' species, you reproduce very quickly, seriously, you should see the spawning tanks around the major cities, millions of these little green wrigglers every week. Only the best get to become Kerbonauts of course, but there's still many more waiting to fill up any holes in our roster. I'm sure you saw the training montage we released Galaxy wide not so long ago, around the year .21 I believe it was, and I'm sure you noted the general incompetence of the many, many applicants we get each year here at the KSC. I mean, who cares if we lose a few of those numpties huh? Ha, yeah, exactly.

All I can say on the subject is this, if we want to get real eyes, real ears, real brains and real skid marked pants into space before some unthinking, unscreaming, unphotogenic probe cores, then that's our business and nobody elses"

He stormed off shortly after, he wasn't happy at all. But there you have it folks, straight from the frog descendants mouth.

[allmappedout]

I understand the gameplay precedent behind it, but there's a very simple way of solving this:

A forced, guided, build-to-orbit tutorial. ie: Werner von Kerman starts off introducing you at the point where we're 'just about to build the first rocket to leave the atmosphere!', and it goes through the steps of how the VAB works, and so on, and forces you to build a simple rocket which will always be the same as everyone else's, and then talks you through launch and controls and so on. The first rocket then is a probe-based rocket, and you accomplish a defined set of goal, guide the new player, whilst also teaching them the importance of things like power/batteries for probes, and what each part of the rocket does, such as SAS and so on.

Whilst it won't be any fun for those of us who know what we're doing, if it's a) quick simple and c) standardised, it will give you a good grounding in the very basics. I'm thinking along the lines of the scripted first mission of the new XCOM game, whereby your squad had to move to specific places, and scripted events happen. By doing this, it shows the game mechanics, and means players don't get sidetracked.

The upshot of this is that 1. Probes come first but 2. your first actual, controlled flight could be a manned one now.

I do really, really like the idea of having a mission control-style IVA screen for probes which was mentioned above to keep the kerbal immersion there as well.

[boomerdog2000]

If that were the case could we toggle the tutorial like in XCOM? I ran through that in the demo and still actually haven't done it in the full game, because the tactics used in the tutorial were atrocious.

[lajoswinkler]

If people want to keep the Kerbal-factor for probes, how about having a view of mission control during probe operations: instead of one or three suited Kerbals in a ship, how about three shirtsleeve Kerbals in mission control reacting to their telemetry?

I guess it would be fairly easy to implement: instead of having an internal space in the capsule have an internal space in some dislocated volume (behind the camera?) and remember to turn off camera shake and "death"!

Brilliant. If that's implemented, I'd be ok with "probes before Kerbals" in all situations.

If it is not implemented, I'm still for the option where the player needs to prove he can reach a stable orbit around Kerbin with an unmanned rocket.

That's the minimum of reality, it just begs to be implemented.

As for the control center reactions, I'd enjoy looking at their reactions. Facepalms, joy, dancing, crying, etc.

[allmappedout]

If that were the case could we toggle the tutorial like in XCOM? I ran through that in the demo and still actually haven't done it in the full game, because the tactics used in the tutorial were atrocious.

Of course; after the first time you do it, ever. If its only a couple of minutes though, forcing all users to have to do it once will give a sound flat playing field of knowledge to build From.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Reposting this from the other thread:

Probes really need instruments to gather data, and power to work. Without so much as using its reaction wheels, a typical probe will not last long enough on internal batteries to make it anywhere, plus the reaction wheels it does have are pitiful. Probes are thus nearly useless without RCS.

So to recap, in order to do science - i.e. start the game - with probes, you need a probe core, some kind of instrument, either RCS or separate reaction wheels, and ideally some extra power because probe cores have pitiful reserves and actually need them to stay active. The power draw of the simplest transmission antenna, for the simplest report, is greater than what the probe can store, so you would be even more limited. A capsule, however, just needs a booster and a parachute - to go up and to come down, and everything else is done by the pilot.

Starting the game with manned capsules thus makes more sense both from the game progression standpoint, and from the in-universe standpoint, that being the Kerbals' amazing incompetence in the face of their sheer engineering prowess. They have rocket engines and spacesuits, but need effort to put together space-worthy thermometers and battery packs or realize that landing legs are a thing that spaceships intending to land should probably actually have. Them not having remotely controlled probes from the start, in the light of all that, makes perfect sense.