A view on "science"

[Ivan Ivanovich]

Maybe i got something wrong and it was just intended as some sort of tutorial to ease new players into the game so they don't get drowned by the insane list of options that falls on their head when opening sandbox, and it sure serves that purpose very well. As a "career mode" I was hoping for something more intricate and more following the idea of cause and effect. Don't get me wrong, the system works and it is actually quite fun, but it feels a bit shallow and I'd fear it gets old pretty fast.

It's doing the same stuff over and over again, just around different planets. You expose the goo, you open the science box, report back from the capsule, do a bit of EVA and if you're on a planet you can also collect a bit of soil. And then, well, you can do the same on another planet.

In my opinion, what you can do (and "should" do, for progress) is that you use new stuff you got, which opens up new things you can do, and those new things in turn allow you to move on and get further tech. Like, say, there's some insight to be gained from reaching milestones like orbital flight, SOI changes, docking, whatever else.

Another interesting idea would be that you have to "perfect" new technology by actually using it. Where it might mis- or even backfire the first couple of times until you got it right. I'd consider that quite Kerbal if a few thrusters behave strangely for the first few flights (which could be something a good, well trained pilot could compensate).

Don't get me wrong, I like the new toys, I'm a big fan of games where you research stuff and get new stuff to play with, but right now it seems to get old very quickly since the research is staying the same no matter how far you get in the tech tree.

[Person012345]

Remember, it's only 1 part of the campaign. When finished there will be plenty else to do presumably. You will just have to do science on the side in addition in order to unlock new parts.

[Secret Squirrel]

My understanding of it is there will be mission requests (at mission control) that you will get and can complete for money, use the money to buy parts, and research science to unlock new parts to buy. I have a vision in my head of something close to the Mission Controller mod, put this set of parts in this orbit around this planet... The science research in this update, I think, is an awesome first step into career mode.

[JumpsterG]

I need to actually play with .22 (trapped in Real Life) so I don't know the layout of the tech tree exactly, yet. It sounds like you have all of the experiment objects very early though. It would help if experiments were slowly introduced as their own set of tech nodes. Having only simple experiments to run the first time you get to a planet, gives you a reason to return once you have a new kind of experiment.

This doesn't completely resolve the problem of rinse/repeat science done on planets, though. Hopefully:

-Resources will come into play which will vary the experience on different planets (each has different kinds of resources)

-Economic/mission interests will be represented, giving us new things to accomplish across the solar system