I think career mode should be reworked substantially - here is my idea

[Kasuha]

I have played the Career mode and I had great fun the two days it lasted for me. That's not little - many games don't offer that much. But KSP in my opinion has much better potential.

My opinion is, the career mode is taken from the wrong end.

The science should not be the "currency" for which you buy technology. You need a LOT of technology to reach the nearest planets, and you need only a little more to reach them all.

Instead, science should be the goal, the driver of the story. The game should in my opinion support what many have been doing in the sandbox mode for a long time already, i.e. support discovery, not grind.

My idea how the career mode should work is about this:

- general scientific basis is okay, i.e. your progress is given by doing research at certain locations

- as you do research, not technology but more research areas open to you.

- technology is there only to support you getting to the place and yes, you are getting piece of technology here and there but not directly proportional to amount of science you made. The game should just make sure you always have enough technology to advance your research further

Example:

At the start, only Kerbin and its atmosphere are open to you. You are not allowed to exceed 70 km above Kerbin. You get some basic science tools (thermometer) and are sent to do research. You can also pick up samples and make reports. You get also some basic technology, at the start I would even suggest that it should allow you to build a simple plane rather than a rocket.

After you do some research, pick up samples of soil around KSP, measure temperatures and write some reports, you get some rocket parts and you are allowed to do research in Kerbin orbit. The Kerbin SOI opens to you, but you are not allowed to exit it, or to enter SOI of moons. If you break any of such rules the mission is ended and you get no science points from it.

After some research in space, you are allowed to enter Mun SOI, but not to land. Then you get permission to enter Minmus SOI. Then landing on Minmus, then landing on Mun. Then you are first allowed to go interplanetary, but only for unmanned probes. And so on.

There could be a tree of scientific achievements opening further research/entry permissions. For instance to open orbital research, you need to research atmosphere (physics) and mountains (minerals/materials). Research in Kerbin arctic zones may be necessary to open research on Vall or Eeloo. And your technology will always advance sufficiently to allow you to do the research you have just uncovered. Different research parts may even enable you the same technology if it is necessary to do that research. Combining multiple paths may give you more technology and make your research in each of them easier but it should not prevent you doing it "depth-first" style.

When near the bottom of the research tree, technology rewards for research should be mostly cosmetic, such as additional sizes of wheels or items not introduced to the game yet which are not necessary to finish missions but can be used to make ships prettier. But it should be always clear that the goal, the tree you are looking at is not a tree of ship parts, but the tree of scientific research which you need to finish on all Kerbol bodies.

Edited October 19, 2013 by Kasuha

[stupid_chris]

Watch out though, career mode != tech tree. That is only one element of what career mode will be, it's still a work in progress. From what it seems, science will let you research parts, which you must then prototype once (the current unused unlock cost", and then you will be able to buy more of the same part once you have prototyped it once. Essentially, the main goal of career will be economically driven through missions/contracts and such. That's what seems to be planned.

However I do see your idea of go somewhere/unlock something. That could perhaps be implemented in parallel.

[Sirrobert]

Permission to enter Mun SOI?

How the hell you wanna do that, place an invisible wall? That's stupid.

A better idea might be to have the other planets themselves invisible in the map section.

Besides, there is nothing to rework yet. Only to improve. Don't forget that this is the first released version, of the ALPHA game

[boomerdog2000]

Even less. This is the foundation of one part of Career mode, we don't even have biomes for areas other than Kerbin and the Mun yet. Just give it some time and put a little faith in Squad.

Also agree with Sirrobert on lack of permission, it doesn't really make sense here nor would it work in any feasible fashion.

[TimMartland]

My only problem with the current build of Career is that the Stayputnik and other probe parts are a decent way into the tech tree and not one of them is available from the outset. This means new players have to kill a lot of Kerbals to lean the game, and OCD players like me have to go outside reasonable realism and send manned flights before probes. Lets face it, the first orbiting man made satellite was an unmanned probe.

[Kasuha]

My main problem with the current career mode is that you need most of technology to get to planets at all. But most of the science awaits at these planets and once you got all the technology you don't need to make any more science there. Technology is bad reward for science because you need this technology to do that science in the first place. Introduction of more biomes on other planets will only enlarge the gap - way way more science to do with no sensible reward. That's why I think accomplished research should be the reward on itself.

Once their technology tree is all green people will feel it's the end of the game. That's why I am suggesting to forget technology tree and introduce science tree.

Permission to enter Mun SOI?

How the hell you wanna do that, place an invisible wall? That's stupid.

You would know the answer if you read two more paragraphs in my post. If you are in charge of project to research something and you start researching something else, you will find yourself not in charge of that project and the project aborted very soon. That's pretty normal. So if your project is to research space around Kerbin, you have no business near any of the moons.

[Sirrobert]

My only problem with the current build of Career is that the Stayputnik and other probe parts are a decent way into the tech tree and not one of them is available from the outset. This means new players have to kill a lot of Kerbals to lean the game, and OCD players like me have to go outside reasonable realism and send manned flights before probes. Lets face it, the first orbiting man made satellite was an unmanned probe.

It makes perfect sense in Kerbal 'lore' though. Just add boosters to a green guy, and see what happends

Hell, just take a sample directly from the launchpad and you see what I meam

Besides, new players would be better off to learn the basics of flight in the sandbox anyway, kerbal death or not

[shand]

You would know the answer if you read two more paragraphs in my post. If you are in charge of project to research something and you start researching something else, you will find yourself not in charge of that project and the project aborted very soon. That's pretty normal. So if your project is to research space around Kerbin, you have no business near any of the moons.

Entirely false in every way - you do not work in science clearly. If your project exceeds its target specifications you do not get fired - you might not get extra credit but any science you perform, even if it is outside of the original parametres is still valid.

For example, the rovers on mars are well outside their expected mission spec - yet are still being run and the science is still having an impact. if curiousity had ended up landing on mercury by some huge mishap (like the ones that fire rovers off target all the time) then the science would still be applicable.

also as stupid_chris says, this is just the backbone of the career progression in terms of technology - the devs have stated at least twice how they propose to deal with the missions and suggested a way currency would be an impacting factor.

I would suggest the techtree will be developed more, probably to keep you around kerbin a bit longer, but either way the first few missions will be within kerbins SOI - and complition of a mission will likely not stop you using the craft, so you will then be able to complete the next mission. IE: "acheive orbit" followed by "fly by of mun".

[Sirrobert]

You would know the answer if you read two more paragraphs in my post. If you are in charge of project to research something and you start researching something else, you will find yourself not in charge of that project and the project aborted very soon. That's pretty normal. So if your project is to research space around Kerbin, you have no business near any of the moons.

So if you are researching bacteria colonies, and than find that a fungus inside the colonies gives of some substance that is killing the bacteria, that result is worthless and would get you fired if you research it further?

Cause in the real world, that's how we ended up with Penicillin. Better known as one of the biggest discoverys in the history of medicine

[JoCRaM]

Cause in the real world, that's how we ended up with Penicillin. Better known as one of the biggest discoverys in the history of medicine

and it probably would have got someone fired given the state of modern science. Curiosity? it's all about the funding.

[dlrk]

I agree with you generally that the whole career mode concept we currently have needs to be completely redone, but I don't think hard, artificial limits like you suggest are the best way to do it.

[Kasuha]

For example, the rovers on mars are well outside their expected mission spec - yet are still being run and the science is still having an impact. if curiousity had ended up landing on mercury by some huge mishap (like the ones that fire rovers off target all the time) then the science would still be applicable.

If anyone discovered they are secretly preparing manned mission to Mars, someone would get fired immediately because it's spending funds on unapproved project. Even extension of Spirit/Opportunity missions required approval because it meant spending more money on staff and communication resources - but everybody was expecting it will happen so everybody was ready to do that. It may surprise you but not just base missions but also their extensions are planned long ahead.

[Kasuha]

I agree with you generally that the whole career mode concept we currently have needs to be completely redone, but I don't think hard, artificial limits like you suggest are the best way to do it.

I don't think "we shouldn't go there because we aren't ready to go there yet" is a hard artificial limit. Hard artificial limit only comes when you choose not to follow the recomendation. If the player follows the flow of the game, he will get plenty of research tasks to do which would expand as he does more research.

Note that this idea came to me after seeing contraptions some players made from Tier 0 tech to reach areas they weren't supposed to visit at that level. The idea was to not let them there until they are ready.

But it's true that we don't have to physically prevent the player entering these areas. All it needs is to only allow him doing research there if he has all research prerequisities for the area completed. Until then, no research and no progress. That might actually allow people easier transition from the goal-based game to endgame sandbox mode if they can make a base there and eventually stop caring whether they have all prerequisities for research done because they already have other things to do.

Edited October 19, 2013 by Kasuha

[Ironwatsas]

I think what the OP means, and what I'd sort of like to see is, missions and tech unlocks should proceed in a more logical manner than what we have now.

Here is my idea on this:

1. You get basic plane and rocket parts (enough to build an Aeris-3A, small probe, or mk1 orbiter) right at the start. But you're limited to small rockets and your main scientific goals and missions would be on the surface of or in orbit of Kerbin.
   
2. You'd reach certain scientific 'milestones' which would change the nature of the missions you'd receive. For example, at the start, you'd take air samples or temperature data from certain areas on Kerbin in the vicinity of KSC (anything further out would be strictly 'bonus', as it takes a long time to fly there without a hypersonic plane or orbiter). As you gain more science, more missions such as "Deploy a Probe with Instrument X in an orbit of Y-km" (satellite deploy missions would be easy moneymaking missions).
   
3. Once you have enough SCIENCE and have unlocked more advanced parts, you'll start to get Mun and Minmus missions, with 'special' missions such as '1st Mun Landing', '1st Space Station', '1st Anything in space', '1st probe to Duna' being major milestones, which give you funding boosts and/or cutscenes of the Kerbals partying in their triumph.
   
4. Missions would have reward based on difficulty, complexity, and weather it's the first time you've done it. The 1st Mun landing, for example, would net more science and Krones then the 79th. UNLESS discovery of an anomaly is involved.
   

Tech should follow a more realistic progression (or atleast have alternate tech trees you can choose). In real life, we had aeroplanes before we had probes, we had probes before we had Mercury/Vostok, we had Mercury/Vostok before we had Apollo, and we had Apollo before we had massive asparagus-staged monstrosities which can fling 50 ton space stations or

into orbit in one piece.

[Sirrobert]

and it probably would have got someone fired given the state of modern science. Curiosity? it's all about the funding.

O how fun it is to hear people talk about things the think they hear on TV.

Ofcourse it's about funding. How else are you going to pay for your research? What do you think happends with it? Researchers aren't bank directors getting bonusses while the bank is in debt buddy.

And how do you think you GET funding? By having a good idea!

How do you get a good idea? Well, start by thinking of something that isn't know yet, and wanting to know it. Wait, I think I know a single word for that. I think there's a Mars rover named after that word. Which is up there to find out things we don't know

Note that this idea came to me after seeing contraptions some players made from Tier 0 tech to reach areas they weren't supposed to visit at that level. The idea was to not let them there until they are ready.

Now would you mind pointing out the part where that is BAD thing? This is a game about creativity, reaching for the stars!

Who the hell are you to say that someone else is not ALLOWED to do something creative in theyr own single player game?

Edited October 19, 2013 by Sirrobert

[Sirrobert]

I agree with you generally that the whole career mode concept we currently have needs to be completely redone, but I don't think hard, artificial limits like you suggest are the best way to do it.

Name 1 game where invisible walls improve anything

[TimMartland]

It makes perfect sense in Kerbal 'lore' though. Just add boosters to a green guy, and see what happends

Hell, just take a sample directly from the launchpad and you see what I meam

Besides, new players would be better off to learn the basics of flight in the sandbox anyway, kerbal death or not

But according to developers, is Career mode's curve not intended to help new players lean the game without being overwhelmed? Also, KSPs great strength is allowing people to play how they want, and considering how many people like to play realistically along the curve of actual rocket science progress, I don't think I'm the only one troubled by the discrepancyof immediate manned space flight. P.S KSP has lore? In not kidding in saying I had no idea it did!

[boomerdog2000]

You guys also forget that we are the directors of this space program. If you want to impose those hard limits on your space program that's fine, just don't impose them on ours.

One of my first attempts at a Mun flyby I was terribly inclined and didn't want to try and fix it. I was however almost exactly at Minmus' inclination so I did a flyby just for fun and got a good amount of science out of it. According to your system I should get nothing for telling my kerbal to go check out that moon because I haven't looked at our other moon first?

The entire purpose of this game is to run a space program the way we want. If that involves the restrictions you are proposing you are free to do so.

[Sirrobert]

But according to developers, is Career mode's curve not intended to help new players lean the game without being overwhelmed? Also, KSPs great strength is allowing people to play how they want, and considering how many people like to play realistically along the curve of actual rocket science progress, I don't think I'm the only one troubled by the discrepancyof immediate manned space flight. P.S KSP has lore? In not kidding in saying I had no idea it did!

Why you think I used quotation marks

No real lore, but we do sortof get to know how the kerbals think through other things, like this

And you actually can learn pritty good with the tech tree, first a small takeoff and landing, than a real balistic flight, than orbit, ect. The way the tech tree is setup, you are kinda forced to take those steps. I don't think you can exclude the crashing kerbals off it though. And remote control is more advanced than a guy in the cockpit.

For the realistic things, I gues we'll need to use mods for that. There are already some good ones. Best thing Squad can do is provide a solid base from which to build

(this is a good mod: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/53192-0-22-TreeLoader-Custom-Career-Tech-tree-Loader-1-0)

[N_Molson]

Anyway, the Carrer Mode is really in its beginnings. It's clearly not complete enough to jugde if it is good or bad. I'd say that what I see now is fun and has a lot of promising potential, but that's all.

If you don't like the tech tree order, you can always rearrange it your way.

[shand]

If anyone discovered they are secretly preparing manned mission to Mars, someone would get fired immediately because it's spending funds on unapproved project. Even extension of Spirit/Opportunity missions required approval because it meant spending more money on staff and communication resources - but everybody was expecting it will happen so everybody was ready to do that. It may surprise you but not just base missions but also their extensions are planned long ahead.

it doesn't surprise me in the slightest - plan for the best, prepare for the worst. every bit of scientific funding has "stretch goals"

YOU are in charge of what missions you do in this game - you arent the engineer, who would be fired if they were building in stretch goals, you are the overlord of the buisness. you will accept missions (or maybe just get money for fulfilling them without accepting them, whatever) and it will cost money to send things up - i dont see a longer mission costing more - there may be time locked missions, who knows. basically, you are a private buisness, you get money, you spend money, hopefully you do something that earns more money along the way. you aren't NASA - otherwise what you achieve would have no real impact on your funding (funding didnt increase drastically just cause they got to the moon and it definitely didn't increase when they got curiosity on target).

Anywho: the career mode is a lil baby of a feature (although a massive amount of work and awesome for what it is!). You dont go to a nursey and say "Yesh this kid needs to be seriously reeducated", primarily because they arent finished yet! their teachers havent even started on spelling their name and you want them writing their second book!? come on dude! but also because the educatation they do have will be shaped by their future lessons and life, they'll change their name 3 times before uni and change their dream job 4 or 5 times and probably go through a stage of not even knowing.

so to summarise: yes, career mode as it is really really isnt finished - its the technical backbone of the gameplay to come. it is literally a tech tree - more is to come. Imagine you are playing the dev version of Civ 5 - it has the tech tree but no AI...

[Lexar]

I have played the Career mode and I had great fun the two days it lasted for me. That's not little - many games don't offer that much. But KSP in my opinion has much better potential.

My opinion is, the career mode is taken from the wrong end.

The science should not be the "currency" for which you buy technology. You need a LOT of technology to reach the nearest planets, and you need only a little more to reach them all.

Instead, science should be the goal, the driver of the story. The game should in my opinion support what many have been doing in the sandbox mode for a long time already, i.e. support discovery, not grind.

My idea how the career mode should work is about this:

- general scientific basis is okay, i.e. your progress is given by doing research at certain locations

- as you do research, not technology but more research areas open to you.

- technology is there only to support you getting to the place and yes, you are getting piece of technology here and there but not directly proportional to amount of science you made. The game should just make sure you always have enough technology to advance your research further

Example:

At the start, only Kerbin and its atmosphere are open to you. You are not allowed to exceed 70 km above Kerbin. You get some basic science tools (thermometer) and are sent to do research. You can also pick up samples and make reports. You get also some basic technology, at the start I would even suggest that it should allow you to build a simple plane rather than a rocket.

After you do some research, pick up samples of soil around KSP, measure temperatures and write some reports, you get some rocket parts and you are allowed to do research in Kerbin orbit. The Kerbin SOI opens to you, but you are not allowed to exit it, or to enter SOI of moons. If you break any of such rules the mission is ended and you get no science points from it.

After some research in space, you are allowed to enter Mun SOI, but not to land. Then you get permission to enter Minmus SOI. Then landing on Minmus, then landing on Mun. Then you are first allowed to go interplanetary, but only for unmanned probes. And so on.

There could be a tree of scientific achievements opening further research/entry permissions. For instance to open orbital research, you need to research atmosphere (physics) and mountains (minerals/materials). Research in Kerbin arctic zones may be necessary to open research on Vall or Eeloo. And your technology will always advance sufficiently to allow you to do the research you have just uncovered. Different research parts may even enable you the same technology if it is necessary to do that research. Combining multiple paths may give you more technology and make your research in each of them easier but it should not prevent you doing it "depth-first" style.

When near the bottom of the research tree, technology rewards for research should be mostly cosmetic, such as additional sizes of wheels or items not introduced to the game yet which are not necessary to finish missions but can be used to make ships prettier. But it should be always clear that the goal, the tree you are looking at is not a tree of ship parts, but the tree of scientific research which you need to finish on all Kerbol bodies.

I think you are overlooking the fact that the career mode is only about testing the science gathering mechanic at the moment. Once credits are introduced you will be limited to only a set amount of parts because of your funding. This funding will only allow you to travel so far because of the price of each piece on your ship. People won't be able to strap 5 pods and 20 boosters onto their ship after 1 or 2 launches to hit the outer planets. (That is if they implement the credits correctly.) I am hoping funding will be the main grind of the game instead of "asking permission" to go to other planets. Kerbals arn't about asking permission they just push a button and see what it does.

[Eric S]

I have to disagree on almost all of this. Career mode isn't just the tech tree, so it's way too early to be saying that it's done backwards.

Once there's an actual budget in the game, there could be penalties for going over the budget, but achieving all assigned tasks and then going farther on that same budget shouldn't be prohibited.

[Specialist290]

YOU are in charge of what missions you do in this game - you arent the engineer, who would be fired if they were building in stretch goals, you are the overlord of the buisness. you will accept missions (or maybe just get money for fulfilling them without accepting them, whatever) and it will cost money to send things up - i dont see a longer mission costing more - there may be time locked missions, who knows. basically, you are a private buisness, you get money, you spend money, hopefully you do something that earns more money along the way. you aren't NASA - otherwise what you achieve would have no real impact on your funding (funding didnt increase drastically just cause they got to the moon and it definitely didn't increase when they got curiosity on target).

This exactly. We're the Big Man (or Woman) at the Top approving the projects in the first place, not the Lowly Project Manager worrying about whether or not what they're doing is exceeding their mandate. The best way to limit the players' options to prevent people from getting to the Mun and back with Tier 0 tech isn't to put up an arbitrary wall; it's to limit the resources they have available at the start so that it's impossible to buy all the parts you'd need to do that, which isn't properly going to happen until we get an economic system to go along with the scientific one, especially if part of that economy involves performing specific goals as part of a contract.

If there's going to be any sort of "punishing the player" going on, it should be for not doing what they've agreed to do, not for "not being ready" for something they've clearly demonstrated they are perfectly ready for.

Edited October 19, 2013 by Specialist290

[Skyrunner27]

Right now we have an incomplete tech tree. Using our current information on the tech tree we can see that science only gives you the break throughs such as enhanced control, and advanced landing equipment. Money will be the thing that gives you individual parts.