Career disapointemnt

[Kerbart]

How can probes first be realistic? Kerbals didn't start with the technology required for remote control until they're halfway in the tech tree. Heck, it took them a long time to figure out that space ships and electronics can be combined!

Try building an autonomous drone. Make it take off, fly two circles around the local church tower, and land, all by itself. Added difficulty: you're not allowed to use integrated circuits, or even transistors. And don't think this is limited to Kerbin: when it came to regular flight we did the same thing. Heck, it took us like how long after the Wright brothers before we had autonomous aircraft?

Kerballed flight first is totally realistic.

[NASAFanboy]

How can probes first be realistic? Kerbals didn't start with the technology required for remote control until they're halfway in the tech tree. Heck, it took them a long time to figure out that space ships and electronics can be combined!

Try building an autonomous drone. Make it take off, fly two circles around the local church tower, and land, all by itself. Added difficulty: you're not allowed to use integrated circuits, or even transistors. And don't think this is limited to Kerbin: when it came to regular flight we did the same thing. Heck, it took us like how long after the Wright brothers before we had autonomous aircraft?

Kerballed flight first is totally realistic.

Unfortunately, it's not.

Spaceflight is not atmospherically flight.

I say we add difficulty levels

[Sirrobert]

Unfortunately, it's not.

Spaceflight is not atmospherically flight.

I say we add difficulty levels

Kerbals don't have atmospheric flight until you research it...

[Minarkhaios]

The first 'real' rockets were the german V1, and they had no fine or autonomous controls (and also exist in a manned version). Point, launch, correction for next launch.

The first controlled rockets where manned, the other one were just 'launch in the approximate direction and hope for the best' (or the worst for the V1).

So maybe a half way solution might be to had uncontrollable probe core to KSP. You can launch the rocket, do some basic staging, maybe some prerecorded maneuver (turn 5° east at 10 Km), and that's all folks.(And that would be fun too).

[Scrogdog]

I'm surprised that no one has bought up unmanned capsule launches. For example, the Mercury capsule was tested extensively over years and in many configurations before Shepard flew in May of '61. Then a few more before the orbital flights.

If you ask me, this ability is more important than probes in terms of preparing for space flight.

Little Joe 1 21 August 1959

Big Joe 1 9 September 1959

Little Joe 6 4 October 1959

Little Joe 1A 4 November 1959

Little Joe 2 4 December 1959

Little Joe 1B 21 January 1960

Mercury-Atlas 1 29 July 1960

Little Joe 5 8 November 1960

Mercury-Redstone 1 21 November 1960

Mercury-Redstone 1A 19 December 1960

Mercury-Redstone 2 31 January 1961

Mercury-Atlas 2 21 February 1961

Little Joe 5A 18 March 1961

Mercury-Redstone BD 24 March 1961

Mercury-Atlas 3 25 April 1961

Little Joe 5B 28 April 1961

(May–July, 1961: manned suborbital flights)

Mercury-Atlas 4 13 September 1961

Mercury-Scout 1 1 November 1961

Mercury-Atlas 5 29 November 1961

(manned orbitals)

[Drunken Hobo]

If you want realism, surely jet planes should come way, way before rocketry? Or even propeller planes, or hot air balloons...

But planes are more complicated than rockets in KSP. So from a gameplay perspective, it makes sense for Kerbals to research rocketry before they fiddle around with winged aircraft. This isn't supposed to be "Human Space Exploration Simulator 2013". Sending a Kerbal into space is easier than sending a probe.

It's fine the way it is, although certainly needs a few tweaks & balances. I'd like to see RCS before reaction wheels for example.

[iDan122]

Career is fine, the part limitation is the best, it boosts your creativity. It is decently well arranged(the tech tree).

[Scrogdog]

This isn't supposed to be "Human Space Exploration Simulator 2013". Sending a Kerbal into space is easier than sending a probe.

That may be so, but even if Kerbal's have a callous regard for life, we know that 'naut training is coming. Here on Earth that was a lengthy and costly process; one would assume that is also the case on Kerbin regardless of other factors.

In short, I would imagine that at some point in career mode conservation of highly trained and experienced Kerbalnauts will be an economic and practical matter.

[BostLabs]

Sputnik did a little more than merely send beeps. It measured the ionosphere and helped us map the density of the upper atmosphere.

What exactly did Yuri Gagarin do in his trip that Sputnik didn't do?

(Note: This is not a dig on Yuri Gagarin. He had a set made of chiseled marble just for agreeing to get in that death trap)

Umm no. It beeped. That is all it sent back. Those measurements were made off of it from the ground.

Sputnik 1 (Russian: "áÿутýøú-1" <small>Russian pronunciation: </small>[ˈsputnʲɪk], "Satellite-1", ßá-1 (PS-1, i.e. "ßрþÑÂтõùшøù áÿутýøú-1", or Elementary Satellite-1))^[1] was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was a 58 cm (23 in) diameter polished metal sphere, with four external radio antennae to broadcast radio pulses. The Soviet Union launched it into an elliptical low Earth orbit on October 4, 1957. It was visible all around the Earth and its radio pulses detectable. The surprise success precipitated the American Sputnik crisis, began the Space Age and triggered the Space Race, a part of the larger Cold War. The launch ushered in new political, military, technological, and scientific developments.^[2][3]

Sputnik itself provided scientists with valuable information. The density of the upper atmosphere could be deduced from its drag on the orbit, and the propagation of its radio signals gave information about the ionosphere.

[DChurchill]

And what science did it do? It sent a beeping radio signal. That's all. In game terms it was a piece of debris. No way of controlling it at all. It does not compare to probe cores.

[JumpsterG]

It's been touched on in this thread (and probably a few threads I have not been around long enough to read):

Unmanned launches are not the same thing as computer-guided launches. Guidance systems sophisticated enough to replace a pilot took a great deal of time to develop and still come with limitations. As described a page back, many launches of mercury were done unmanned before they dared put a man in the capsule, but the control of the craft was limited to a small list of very specific maneuvers. A far cry from the total control our probe cores give us.

If we needed this reality stuff in KSP, our initial launches would be empty capsules with pre-programmed maneuvers and no in-flight control. The starting tech node would have neither a manned pod nor a probe core. I have to admit I kind of like the idea, even though I feel it is unnecessary for the base game.

Note that you can achieve something to this effect by modifying your capsule cfg to make it a probe, then restricting yourself to KOS for early launches...

[asmi]

And what science did it do? It sent a beeping radio signal. That's all. In game terms it was a piece of debris. No way of controlling it at all. It does not compare to probe cores.

Really? How about proving the mere fact that orbital flight is possible? This is the most important scientific result in the whole space science.

Vast majority of space science is done using probes. Human flight hadn't done a mere 0.01% of what has been accomplished with unmanned vehicles.

[Firenexus13]

First disclaimer: I know that this is first implementation of Career Mode, and things can change.

I was very happy when 0.22 came out with Career mode, but when I started playing it I was disappointed...

First thing is how parts are arranged on tech tree.

You start with only very few parts so you have little room for design.

And you start with sending Kerbals instead of probes.

I would prefer to send probes first for some stupid reasons like safety, and wanting to keep kerbals alive. I know that the way it is now is more "kerbal" but I still would like my way.

Second: I would like also to have to maintain budget.

Fight for money send commercial missions to earn more money to have enough to send science missions.

I know that first thing can be easily modded into the game with changing parts placement in tech-tree, and I think of doing it someday if there will be no official solution for this.

Second thing may be done with mods, but I can't mod... There was mod for this but it died...

I would like to read some opinions on that, maybe I'm not alone...

There is a mod that lets you make a tech tree i think..

[FITorion]

While that one actually did do a little science... It is again far below KSPs probe cores in terms of capability.

The only things really that could in the least bit compare in the early space race would be Lunahod and the orbiter I forget the name of that we sent to the Mun. And yet still neither of those had the advanced AI that the KSP probes evidently have. KSP probes are more akin to modern probes like New Horizons or the Mars rover Curiosity. And even those get programmed instructions sent to them and aren't autonomous like KSP probes are.

Now if you wanted to add a new part to use for sounding rockets... I'd be for that... but the current probe parts in game are more advanced then we've even yet made in reality.

[Sirrobert]

That may be so, but even if Kerbal's have a callous regard for life, we know that 'naut training is coming. Here on Earth that was a lengthy and costly process; one would assume that is also the case on Kerbin regardless of other factors.

In short, I would imagine that at some point in career mode conservation of highly trained and experienced Kerbalnauts will be an economic and practical matter.

And that's EXACTLY why probes are more advanced.

A probe would allow you to send a 1 way trip to test something, before you risk your kerbals. That's a pritty big advancement over 'just launch and hope it can come back'.

You have to WORK for that luxary.

Besides, sub orbital flights has no risks anyway. You launch up, point to where you want to land, and deploy the chute once fuel runs out.

If you want to compare KSP's rocket age with anything we know here at earth, it's the era of the wright brothers, trying out the first ever planes (rockets) and seeing what works

Edited October 31, 2013 by Sirrobert

[Wallace]

Umm no. It beeped. That is all it sent back. Those measurements were made off of it from the ground.

The beeps were encoded data, internal pressure and temperature. The sphere was filled with pressurised nitrogen in order to detect puncture by micro meteors.

[El wonso]

Than go change it. Noone's stopping you

That's not the point.

PS: than go land on other planets

Why? I've done it in sandbox many times, career mode does not make it any more interesting.

[lazarus1024]

Intentional. The career mode is designed so it doesn't overwhelm you with billions of parts and functions so it smooths out the difficulty curve a bit. If you want free design without limitations you'll either have to unlock the tree or play sandbox.

Gameplay > Realism. For a probe you need charge, energy generation, SAS and separate science modules. For a capsule you just need a kerbal (which is included). It makes sense to get the easy option before getting you complex one. When you do get probe cores you can use them to save significant weight at the cost of extra complexity.

That's something that'll likely be included in the future. Until then you can play with the mission controller mod, which adds exactly what you propose.

You're probably not alone. But your reasoning is very poorly thought out and this discussion has been done to death.

Also there has been discussion of life support, so once that is implemented, it might be that probe stuff gets uncovered earlier.

Combine that with "moar fun" ways to play (I guess) and that SQUAD has mentioned it is just a first cut of the tech tree and how to do science/research. I think we'll find things shuffled around a fair amount by the time the dust settles. Whatever the next release is .22.1 or .23, it looks like there will be a lot of changes to science/research and some tech tree changes. Probably be the biggest change after the initial release. That said, I have almost no doubt that the tech tree will continue to be tweaked in a number of subsequent releases (both as new parts are added to the game, for balance, for new game play types, etc).

Money is coming. It might not be in the next release, but it isn't far away based on what HarvsteR was saying shortly before .22 was released.

[Scrogdog]

And that's EXACTLY why probes are more advanced.

A probe would allow you to send a 1 way trip to test something, before you risk your kerbals. That's a pritty big advancement over 'just launch and hope it can come back'.

You have to WORK for that luxary.

Besides, sub orbital flights has no risks anyway. You launch up, point to where you want to land, and deploy the chute once fuel runs out.

If you want to compare KSP's rocket age with anything we know here at earth, it's the era of the wright brothers, trying out the first ever planes (rockets) and seeing what works

My point was based more on my earlier post about unmanned capsule launches. As I said, YOU might think that sub-orbitals pose no risks, with the advantage of perfect 20/20 hindsight, but as my earlier post shows; many test flights were performed before ever trying a manned sub-orbital. As Jumpster said, these were certainly NOT complex flights and only sought to test one little thing at a time at first. The first test of the Mercury capsule tested ONLY the launch escape system, for example.

And while I agree that probes have bought us oodles more science that manned flight, they have not bought us much that has to DO with manned flight. In addition to that, if anything about human space flight can be criticized, it is that we still don't have much experience in the things that we'll need to know to truly live in space.

Being aboard the ISS is not living in space, it is camping in space.

Edited October 31, 2013 by Scrogdog

[FITorion]

My point was based more on my earlier post about unmanned capsule launches. As I said, YOU might think that sub-orbitals pose no risks, with the advantage of perfect 20/20 hindsight, but as my earlier post shows; many test flights were performed before ever trying a manned sub-orbital. As Jumpster said, these were certainly NOT complex flights and only sought to test one little thing at a time at first. The first test of the Mercury capsule tested ONLY the launch escape system, for example.

And while I agree that probes have bought us oodles more science that manned flight, they have not bought us much that has to DO with manned flight. In addition to that, if anything about human space flight can be criticized, it is that we still don't have much experience in the things that we'll need to know to truly live in space.

Being aboard the ISS is not living in space, it is camping in space.

There's this button... called revert to launch or VAB. This fills the function of unmanned test flights to work out bugs in the design.

[Scrogdog]

There's this button... called revert to launch or VAB. This fills the function of unmanned test flights to work out bugs in the design.

To me, that's cheating.

I also do not zap my debris from the Space Center.

Just a play style thing, I'm perfectly ok with others doing it.

[Sirrobert]

My point was based more on my earlier post about unmanned capsule launches. As I said, YOU might think that sub-orbitals pose no risks, with the advantage of perfect 20/20 hindsight, but as my earlier post shows; many test flights were performed before ever trying a manned sub-orbital. As Jumpster said, these were certainly NOT complex flights and only sought to test one little thing at a time at first. The first test of the Mercury capsule tested ONLY the launch escape system, for example.

And while I agree that probes have bought us oodles more science that manned flight, they have not bought us much that has to DO with manned flight. In addition to that, if anything about human space flight can be criticized, it is that we still don't have much experience in the things that we'll need to know to truly live in space.

Being aboard the ISS is not living in space, it is camping in space.

In game sub-orbital flights is the easiest thing I can think of. Chute, pod, SRB. Launch SRB, SRB runs out, launch chute.

Stop trying to compare KSP to real life. IT's A GAME, NOT A SIMULATOR

Now here's a question for you: WHY did humanity start with unmanned tests before manned? I'll give you a hint: It's NOT because unmanned is easier

[FITorion]

To me, that's cheating.

I also do not zap my debris from the Space Center.

Just a play style thing, I'm perfectly ok with others doing it.

Why? It'd be exactly the same as having those flights unmanned. You can of course choose not to use it as you like but it seems to perfectly fit the desire for test flights that don't risk your kerbals lives. It's all in how you look at it.

[Excl]

The thing about earlier "unmanned" flights ... it was all about testing out rocket hardware, as this was all new technology. There was no rocket control or science research involved. It was about shooting a rocket up and hoping it didn't blow up. It's pretty hard to do that in-game, as we're assuming all career-start parts are 100% functional. I suppose if you want, you could have an uncontrollable probe that you can place on top of rocket, and launch up for your first science point, which would unlock the current set of "starting" hardware, but what's really the point of that?

The "starting" tech is sort of implying they've done all the unmanned test flights up to this point, to get you that starter tech. Now, you're moving on to manned flights where actual research takes place.

By the way, I absolutely love this new career mode. I haven't played KSP in months, but this new career mode has me playing again non-stop. Trying to find new ways of gathering science points, and trying to achieve objectives with a limited part set has made the game wildly challenging and fun again! I've already landed fully instrumented probes on Duna and Eve as well as both moons. I actually landed a 5th probe on Dres, before realizing I forgot to put any science or communication equipment on it! So much for the science payday there!

I guess my only complaint about career so far is that there doesn't seem to be much of a payoff for successful plane flights. It's by far more challenging, yet you can't really get any big science research that you can't get far easier with a rocket.

[oggylt]

First thing is how parts are arranged on tech tree.

You start with only very few parts so you have little room for design.

I would sooooo argue with this my designs never were so creative before I got into the career mode. i thought that it would be prety lonely to land on mun alone so i made one of nicest looking landers ever other than 2lander can some legs and fuel..