The Grand 0.22 Discussion Thread

[DisarmingBaton5]

I really am liking the way this is going. It looks like career mode is a good way to learn the game.

I don't like the new location for Mission Control, though.

[rodion_herrera]

-Model science parts after real experiments instead of mystery science boxes.

.

While as an astronomy educator, I should be among those who would favor this change, I think there is a point being said here, why there are mystery boxes like the goo and etc. Because in its infancy, the practice of science did tend to favor "strange" and "mystic" ideas mixed in with the factual. For instance, take the case of astronomy--before it was "refined", it was mostly astrology. In the case of chemistry, it was alchemy. In the case of mathematics, it was numerology. And you have personalities that backed strange notions that were never proven correct. Like Nikola Tesla and some of his even more stranger ideas, and that guy from Norway who studied the Aurora Borealis (Birklandt?). So for me, the current "mystery box" concept is somewhat a reflection of this, especially considering Kerbals are infamous for their "average stupidity" as opposed to "average intelligence."

[rodion_herrera]

For the first time, there is a poll I really like about KSP, because the results of the poll (so far) reflects my likes/thoughts/observations. Primarly perhaps because I don't like the idea of KSP becoming a "mining economy simulator" *grins*

[daffy]

It's a fun game. None of us are going to be strapping in to the launch seat of any shuttle in the near future. If so, we wouldn't have time to play the video game! lol. Hey, for $23, a string of free updates along the way....I'm satisfied. (Did not say content!!! But, satisfied.) Have fun

[zarniw00p]

Update is ok, but I'm not impressed. Personally I don't care about career mode at all, because it doesn't fit with my gameplay style. I don't like the fact that you can't really use the science equipment in sandbox mode. Subassemblies and new ASAS are nice, but not perfect.

I have the impression that KSP development is getting slower every update. It's not compareable to the huge jumps from 0.15 to 0.16 or from 0.16 to 0.17. There's still a lot to be done and added to the game, just look at the planned features list, but it seems like the devs are not very interested at the moment to work on those things, but rather focus on career mode which basically is nothing more than a short tutorial. I'm not very optimistic for 0.23

[TheDarkStar]

The earlier experiments are like the gray goo, but the later ones are actual measurements (thermometer, gravity meter, etc).

[Superfluous J]

So after a day or so of playing .22 I thought I'd share my first impressions.

...

For instance, I always like to set up large bases on other planets with infrastructure to allow for crew rotation and such. But there doesn't seem to be any incentive to stay on a planet for longer than a minute. Just do a few experiments and then head on home.

...

While I completely agree with everything you've said, the problem here isn't in the research methods and tech tree. The problem is they haven't coded this part. I hope they haven't coded it *yet* because I want it too. I want even more... I want some day to have Kerbal citizens living on Laythe.

However, the tech tree and research part of career mode has nothing to do with this. Until something like Extraplanetary Launchpads is in the game, what you want just won't happen. We need an economy. We need resources. We need to mine minerals and smelt them and get fuel and set up VABs wherever we want and all that. And (I assume) most of that is in the plan. It's just not here yet.

[Swifty]

...snip...

I agree completely!

Also I'm finding it really frustrating I can't look after my kerbal a little bit more. It just doesn't fell right having poor Jeb cooped up in a mk1 capsule for weeks for minimus or almost a year for duna.... I need a 1 man 1m hitchhiker capsule so I don't feel so bad doing longer term missions.

Also starting stock again I once agian learnt my I always have mechjeb installed, I find staring at a nav ball and hitting wasd rather tedious and extremely fustraiting when my craft blows up 4mins in a launch....

[Lexif]

I like it a lot so far. Looking back onto past versions (not just the last), the game feels much more polished now. To me, it gets really obvious that a lot of ground work was done to develop the game into the right direction. Sure, career mode sorely needs missions to structure it more for the new player, and money to restrain progress a bit and balance the experience more. But we all know that this will be the focus of the next major updates. Also, the science stuff adds so much of that specific Kerbal flavour... I think that was much needed as there wasn't that much focus on improving that "branding" in the last updates.

Also, the new KSC experience seems much improved now compared to the last version. I really like how they worked out a lot of the kinks that break immersion: a lighted runway was much needed, all the new roads that now have bridges etc. above pipes and other obstacles...

This makes me look back at the state of the current demo (0.18) -- there should really be a new demo after the next upgrade or so, the whole game feels much different (in a good way) now.

I also like how they only added biome maps to the Mün and Kerbin so far... it seems like a smart decision to get that out to us and to wait for feedback instead of doing it all at once and redoing it again when problems become apparent.

[jdsutton]

I like the new landing gear and satellite dish a lot. It'd be cool to be able to do science things in sandbox just to see the result of the experiments and rack up useless points.

[andysim212]

maybe doing science will eventualy unlock the secrets of the Goo.

[Cmmndrme]

I think its great. And I really enjoy how many negative posts there have been on the forums when the majority of people seem to be loving it

[Starwhip]

Yes! Finally finished downloading, I've already unlocked several tiers (with a recovered sub-orbital hop w/ eva, a total of 24 points) So far so good, really liking how the game flows from one stage to another with the tech tree.

[Jaxal1]

This is quoted for TRUTH right here. I am working on a long post about this very subject and will upload once I'm satisfied I have reasonably explored the science and science parts available in .22.

The trouble with this is that real experiments are designed around a specific context, and would be useless in a different context. I agree that goop is silly, but it means that it doesn't get any less more nonsensical on an arbitrary mission. (As opposed to sending a geology lab on an orbital run and expecting results)

[BlakJak70]

I'm really loving this update as well. It's nice not having every part available from the beginning. I'm really looking forward to see how the career mode evolves over time.

[GusTurbo]

I really love it. Having an actual objective is great, and I don't think it's too easy. There's no way you can unlock the whole tree in 5 launches. If so, then I think that says more about your abilities than it does about the career mode.

Also, just wait until they add money.

[Whackjob]

I'm amazed. I give it the highest ratings. The effects its had on my gameplay is nothing short of interesting.

Probes! I never, ever, ever bothered with a probe before. Why? What would be the point? Now? Now I got one probe circling the sun because I failed to put it on Eve. I have another probe landed but tipped over on Duna. I've got a third one on the way to try to hit up Eve. Maybe later, I'll go for Jool.

Construction! Rather than amuse myself by what glorious and malfeasant machination I could cook up, I'm going for productive works that net me science. Did you know that thermometers, pressure meters, G meters, et cetera, all net you science now also? Did you know that if you send data via antenna, you get less science, but the value of the same data drops less, so you can transmit it a couple of times and still get great science.

This patch? High marks. Very high marks. The Whackjob gives it the seal of approval. And those are almost never given out.

[GusTurbo]

I have to agree with Whackjob. Career mode has completely changed how I play. It's nice variety.

[borzwazie]

I had actually stopped playing KSP. The .22 update with the tech tree made it a challenge, and fun, again. Good job, Squad!

[Titler]

I only this week came back to KSP, having upgraded from WinXP to Win7 and finding I could actually play it now; exact same hardware, but a change in OS unlocked so much processing power in the engine. But I'd lost my entire saved game from previously, all my lovely bases *sniff*. So I was starting again somewhat jaded. I ran the Soviet Pack that I'd always wanted to try (and wasn't able too with WinXP) and wondered what I was to do next? Grind out solar system spanning missions again from scratch?

Well, the .22 patch did add a lot of fun to the game for this somewhat jaded player; the Science is very, very Kerbal-esque in it's nature, especially the reliance on putting Jeb in odd situations to see if he discovers something new. Have you sampled the Launch Pad? Standing outside the capsule way up on top of the rocket? EVAing everywhere? Most amusing, as is the changing gel shapes and reports...

I've not gone too deep into the tech yet, as I'm re-learning how to fly an entire mission by hand. A few small annoyances; There's no easy way to see how data is stored. For instance, there seems to only be space for 1 crew report, and it immediately asks you to over-write it if you try again; but the gel is used over and over again... but on landing you only get one report saved? Where as the EVA, if you load it to the command pod whilst Jeb is still outside, or when you return to the pod records as many as you can get Biomes/locations for. Confusing. They need to tidy that up somewhat.

Career mode is interesting, but has two contradictory results; firstly it encourages you to experiment with a simple tool set, which will be good for newbies as it removes a lot of the frustrating information-madness that paralyses and spoils the fun for many; here's one of my friend's youtube channel and you can see her slowly progressing only by my telling her in comments what all the information means. I suspect then Career mode will be a useful tutorial for her.

But on the other hand, there's one thing which is likely to put newbies off; you don't start with a Probe of any kind. And for people who want to follow alternative history, take the safer/cheaper route, or just don't like to risk their kerbals, that'll be very off-putting. Worse, there's no way to decouple the pod on the first rocket; now I went for a walk around Spaceport, and sampled the landing pad, looked at the gloop on it, and got enough points to unlock the decoupler; but remember, I know what it does and what I was looking for, so I didn't try and bring a pod back with fuel and engines still attached.

There's a couple of other, similar questionable design ideas; access to Electricity is one. Again, I've many, many hours in KSP over the years, so I knew that, baring some serious screwup, Jeb and his data were coming back. I slapped some aerials on just to experiment, but in general I didn't use any Electricity. Which is fortunate because you don't get any until deep in the tech. I suspect they've done that to try and teach people energy management, and limit progression; however all it will do is teach people bad habits later when they are doing long distance probes because they'll be thinking of bringing it back. Far better to separate clearly Kerbal and Automative science, and teach survival in one and energy in the other. Which means having a probe in tier 1 again!

Furthermore, that lovely gloop container is nice, but it won't be when aerodynamics are properly introduced. Unless you have Gloop Science as a third "path" which teaches you to streamline to sneak it in (or develop bigger boosters to get it up inside something else, like a Skylab/Mir style station). Also currently, and sadly, gloop doesn't recognise re-entry heat... nor does Jeb, so don't bother trying to build a cage around his pod so he can go out and toast, he he... I was asking him how he felt having gone outside for a sample and fallen off his pod, asking all the way down to his death...

So my vote was "Ok". Not that it's bad, it's actually quite good, but a lot of polish needed, and a lot more to fiddle with yet!

[lajoswinkler]

It appears that gathering data from higher in orbit around Kerbin isn't going to get me more Science. Is this true, or do I have to go really high in altitude?

Once you go really high, the message for the goo mentions radiation. That's the last thing you'll encounter.

I went to the very edge of Kerbin's SOI and there are no changes. Even tried a 0° polar orbit of maximum size. No changes.

[Mystic]

I'm very much in the "awesome" column on this. Prior to .22 I was at best a dabbler in KSP. Now I suddenly have a reason to keep coming back to it daily, ever since .22 came out. And I'm finally learning how to do things (probably quite simple things for many of the experienced people here) that had always eluded me when I was just dabbling in Sandbox mode, because of my newfound desire to bring back more science and unlock more tech.

I just hope that in future updates Squad will find ways to keep science results a thing of tangible value in Career mode even after the tech tree has been fully opened up by the player.

[spikeyhat09]

What do you think about the new update ?

I'm very disappointed of 0.22, i thought that the career mode was going to be awesome but it turns out that it wasn't. It's way to easy, you fly like 5 times and then you're done So i've been waiting so long for this update for nothing almost, the only good thing is the new sound tracks... But i guess that every big thing has to start small, so for now i'll just play Sandbox

1. this isnt the career mode in its entirety, this is one portion that you will have to do when career mode is fully fledged. they plan on adding more aspects besides research and development, and it still needs tweaking.

2. while it is possible to get all the parts in just a couple flights, the majority of users (especially newer ones) will not get that far that quickly. one of the purposes of this is to ease new players into the game, instead of throwing them 200 parts and saying "have fun!". while you may be able to gather a bunch of data from all over the kerbin system in one flight (with countless goo containers), new players will take baby steps, maybe just starting with a simple rocket launch, then sub orbital, then orbit, then a munar flyby, etc.

[Godot]

I also like it ...

now we have to get around without all High tech parts from the beginning on ...

and our explorations make sense, as in space and on planets you can return samples and do experiments

Edited October 18, 2013 by Godot

[Hodo]

I voted "Okay", only because its a good patch, but not one that I am utilizing much of. I have played around in Career mode, and I feel it needs to be tweaked a bit more. But I do like it, it just needs tweaking, it makes no since that I would build a rocket that can go to the Mun, but not a plane?