Simple Problems with the Future Career Mode

[alaskafish]

Hey guys, Alaskafish here.

I've been talking to my squad (squad cause we play other games too) and we were talking about career mode. Currently, in order to get new parts, you need science. And to obtain said science, you need to send out missions. This is a good step, since there's no real big problems. Yes there are some such as the fact that at one point you will completely run out of possible science (so kinda hurts modders), but that's not the big problem.

Currently, we as players can speculate three things about the new features in career mode with some evidence.

There will be missions and/or planning of said missions

There will be a price for each part

There will be a quantity for each part

So, here's the problem; Quantity and Price.

For quantity, you'll not be able to play well if they give you a low quantity. New players will find career incredibly hard since they can't "over make" their rockets. Also, price makes that harder because if you don't know how to send a rocket to Jool, and you make this giant rocket which crashes... you may have used a little too many parts. Maybe, you thought about that, so you spend less.. you later found out the rocket doesn't work and you lose the money. This will hurt new players if they don't know how to efficiently get to another planet/orbit ect.

Another thing this does, is reduce creativity. Players like the feeling of making a rocket they thought up at work or school and having it work, giving them a sense of planning victory. But, if there's a fault or a negative effect on the player for doing something wrong, some may plan a lot more, which is fun, but I bet you that the majority of players will end up coping a design. Kind of the like toyota corolla rocket (the one Scott used to land on the Mun) . People will just say "Hey, I don't want to lose money, I'll just copy this rocket exact, and I'll get to where ever I have to go."

I know some of you will think that they wont do it, so no one will, but think of when KSP is in Beta and you have tons of newbies playing the game.

The only solution I thought of is that if making money, and parts come up often and with a high quantity. If you make tons of money for getting a satellite in orbit and you get tons of SRB's for that...

I don't know... It just seemed like a problem to me.

-Alaskafish

[Rainbow-Dashie]

Well we really don't know how to it's going to be setup, it could add up the price of all your parts, and subtract that total when you launch.

Or there could be a "store" where you buy parts, and those are added to your "inventory" which you then can build rockets from, say you buy 20 boosters, and use 4 on a rocket, you still got 16 packed away in storage.

Or worse comes to worse, and you blow your entire budget on a glorified missile sitting in a munar crater, you might just be able to "revert flight"

Dont know how its gonna be set up, so to soon for me to see any problems with it.

[DisarmingBaton5]

Wait and see.

[SirSnuggles]

You can always test things in Sandbox mode, or revert flight, or good ole' fashioned math! I planned an entire mission to Duna using math & I used every last drop of fuel in my stages in the most efficient rocket I could muster... Quite satisfying (& terrifying at the time [didn't know if I would have enough fuel]).

[Supernovy]

Moved to Suggestions and Development Discussion.

EDIT: Added [Discussion] tag.

[SaturnV]

My thought is, if you think career is too limited and too hard, try sandbox instead. We all had fun in sandbox for years.

[alaskafish]

._.

This thread isn't a suggestion, or either a development discussion.

People all over the general topic section post things like this, and never do I ever see them moved...

[alaskafish]

My thought is, if you think career is too limited and too hard, try sandbox instead. We all had fun in sandbox for years.

I did state, I didn't want people to say this.

Because obviously someone would either way.

[Sirrobert]

Acthaully, the limited parts has hugely sparked my creativity. Having costs with it would probably only help that more.

On the overdesigning part: I used to do that in sandbox. I now learned that it's much easier to control (and build actually) smaller, simpler rockets

[Kegereneku]

So, here's the problem; Quantity and Price.

Ah yes, the problem of money.

Someone proposed a very interesting "Prestige" based budget. The idea was to avoid "grinding" with a thousand "fetch" or "do" missions just so you can finance your mission to Mars or pay your earlier failures.

Why would we need both Quantity and Price ?

I don't believe in an eternally Open-KSP where the player is given all liberty as to what to do and how to do it "as long as he work for it". That's BAD game-making to me. Even Minecraft don't overdo it.

A game like KSP can profit a lot from some sort of railroading that probably just haven't been incorporated yet. If only because of technological consistency. You just can't eternally let Scott Manley land on the Mun on the 1st career flight. In my opinion Career mode shouldn't even let you achieve orbit with an unmanned probe before a few technological-step flights regardless of how good you are.

The objective is not to limit the player's creativity, it's to enhance the gaming experience, feel part of an actual space program which is so far only enforced by the fear of not having brought enough DeltaV for our objective. This is where Quantity and Price can become efficient balance parameter.

We've seen that with a Tech-tree alone you can't keep one from building a game-breaking rocket.

- With Quantity you could -for example- control the quantity of "Science" per mission without restricting the technology available.

- With Price, you could -for example- balance the number of high-efficiency technology without enforcing a part limit.

See it in term of "allocated budget". You build it how you want it... but you must do with what you have.

You are not even forced to use those parameters constantly, the real world also work around "DeltaV budget" and "Weight to Orbit".

So far I've talked about keeping hardcore player on track, but what about the newbies ? It work just the same, if not better.

There is a lot of new player who -given unlimited budget and parts- didn't realized that you can achieve orbit with very little and keep pilling up rocket and fuel tank in the hope of going high enough for gravity to "stop pulling them back".

- With a clear mission but quantity restriction, you give them the assurance they can do it simply with what they have.

- With available technology but Price/budget, you guide them to what the best parts do and how to use them.

[Guest]

A game like KSP can profit a lot from some sort of railroading that probably just haven't been incorporated yet. If only because of technological consistency. You just can't eternally let Scott Manley land on the Mun on the 1st career flight. In my opinion Career mode shouldn't even let you achieve orbit with an unmanned probe before a few technological-step flights regardless of how good you are.

(Changed emphasis to mine) This sounds like a terrible idea. Having to re-do the entire history of space-flight in order to get around to what I personally want to do every time I start a career mode game is very frustrating. This is a game of exploration and discovery, not of railroading you towards your next predefined goal.

I think part quantity should be removed entirely, especially if it's going to be used to randomly limit a player since that sort if thing really doesn't fit into stock KSP (definitely a mod, though). Or quantity could simply be used for your personal stock, where you can stockpile for future unplanned shortages of money (for instance, if your Duna mission goes south and you're short on cash for another).

As for money, I hope we see the concept of a budget enter the picture, maybe multiple budgets that cover individual objectives (flyby the Mun, land on the Mun, do science on Ike, build an SSTO) with a general budget for farting around. Of course, the general budget could also be used for accomplishing specific objectives and maybe individual budgets would get subsumed into the general budget once the objective is complete. Naturally, you wouldn't need to actually say you're going to accomplish something (accept the mission), you could just go and do it on your general budget. Maybe in that case you would get a percentage of the stated objective budget (and any lesser budgets that lead to it) added to your own general budget.

[bludy]

hi all,

i think an ''hardcore'' career mode could be added, where costs and stock count.

about the budget of the space program, the thing will work with public and private ''donations''? so you'll have an amount of money at the start and every year depending on your results with science, explorations?

i see also you can recover debris landed on the planet, those will be saved at least partially so i hardly see a problem with costs/parts..and with my short experience i use to revert flights the majority of the times i fail..

[Guest]

about the budget of the space program, the thing will work with public and private ''donations''? so you'll have an amount of money at the start and every year depending on your results with science, explorations?

Yearly budgets make no sense when you have time-warping mechanics. It is also very limiting in the same way that some arbitrary "You can't orbit until you've done a sub-orbital flight" rule works. Money, science, etc... should all come from the player's achievements rather than simply showing up on their doorstep.

[ProfessorJeb]

Or there could be a "store" where you buy parts, and those are added to your "inventory" which you then can build rockets from, say you buy 20 boosters, and use 4 on a rocket, you still got 16 packed away in storage.

This is what I am thinking that will be added to the career mode.

And I have become very creative with the limited parts available for me at the start of the career mode.

[UberFuber]

Regarding prices, my thought on the Career Mode is that you can accept various Missions/Contract.

Some missions, like "We'll give you $1,000,000 for getting a Kerbal into orbit and back alive." or "We'll give you $100,000 for performing a land-based experiment in the Mystery Goo container in Kerbin's Grassland biome."

Missions/Contract will, generally, place a fairly generous upper limit on the spaceship cost. The fun challenge would be for player to figure out what's the most "optimal" way to achieve that mission to earn you the most profit.

[Kurld]

I was kind of let down by career mode as presented thus far. Clicking buttons ad nauseam seems very artificial and gamey. And once you get solar panels all it becomes is mindless grinding.

For me, what the game is especially lacking is any sense that your kerbals are “doing somethingâ€Â. I spent a lot of time several months ago building a really cool space station. About 10 minutes after I got done docking the last bits, I was bored with it. “Oh look, there’s Jeb and 10 of his friends and they’re all just sitting around.â€Â

I know it’s early yet and there will be a lot more to come, but here are what I hope are constructive suggestions:

1) Have technology progress tied closely to exploration events. It kind of works that way now, with the points you get for returning ships from various orbits, etc. More of that, and less of the tiresome clicking, PLEASE.

2) I think the science parts are interesting in theory, and having them along on your craft should probably tie in somehow with the RATE or even possibility of technological progress, but I absolutely do not EVER want to personally observe the materials bay and click a button to transmit data ever again. I've probably done it close to 1000 times now. It got SO tedious. Rather, give that role to a kerbal and let them do it as part of their job during a mission.

3) I know it’s a first iteration, but the tech tree itself seems wrong to me on a fundamental level. I’d expect to see technology advances allow you to have more efficient/effective parts. For example, perhaps the entry level technology includes a rocket engine with a nominal amount of thrust and rather crummy ISP. Various advanced tiers and paths might give you “bonuses†to thrust, ISP or reduced size/mass. Or maybe you can make them cheaper or produce them more quickly once economics is introduced. A fuel tank is a fuel tank and making larger tanks is not really a feat of technological progress. Rather it is an engineering challenge.

4) I can only guess that it will be coming in some future release, but it would be an awesome addition if the kerbals are actually doing something cool up in space. Even something simple like eat/sleep/work cycles would make a big improvement. And what would be even more interesting is if there was some way to have the individual kerbals develop over time based on what they were doing on missions. What is it about Jeb that makes him a bad dude? Give me a reason to care about these guys!

5) Again, I can imagine it will come eventually, but I think the game needs meaningful life support: food, water, air, susceptibility to cosmic rays are huge limiting factors for humans reaching any farther into space than we have already travelled. Better/more efficient life support systems seem like a better candidate for a tech tree than bigger fuel tanks, modules, etc. It would also increase the feeling that you are part of an organic universe.

I love playing with model rockets and I look forward to playing KSP for a long time. But what the game really needs to do if it ever wants to move beyond a niche market is to present some meaningful and fun interaction with the kerbal universe. It needs to explore the "why?" and the sense of awe and wonder that makes the prospect of giong into space so enticing for kerbals AND humans. I think if the devs can come up with ways to bridge these gaps, they will have something very special on their hands which will hold interest for a much wider audience.

Thanks,

Kurld

Edited November 4, 2013 by Kurld

[AngelLestat]

Stock?? quantity discount?

Please.. this is a Space Program! You do not buy stuff in the same way you buy in a greengrocery.

Everything that is made for space, is made for space. 90% to 95% of the components are all designed for the purpose. Almost the 100% of the main components are not standard.

So you will not find a private factory where rockets components are made and open to public sale.

Agencies made themself or sent to build all the stuff that they need (with a cost of course), But words like stock or discount does not have much sense in this area.

[boomerdog2000]

Regarding prices, my thought on the Career Mode is that you can accept various Missions/Contract.

It seems like this may be where they're going with gaining money in career mode, but that's just my thoughts.

I'm not sure how quantity would come in to play. It may be once you launch you lose the quantity of said part you put on that ship (these parts would be restored if you reverted the flight) or it could be that that number is an upper limit to the number of that part you could place on a craft, this version makes less sense to me but I suppose is possible.

Price would most likely be just a static price per part. Bigger rocket = more parts = higher cost.

[UberFuber]

It seems like this may be where they're going with gaining money in career mode, but that's just my thoughts.

I'm not sure how quantity would come in to play. It may be once you launch you lose the quantity of said part you put on that ship (these parts would be restored if you reverted the flight) or it could be that that number is an upper limit to the number of that part you could place on a craft, this version makes less sense to me but I suppose is possible.

Price would most likely be just a static price per part. Bigger rocket = more parts = higher cost.

Quantity could come into play for specialized parts of certain contract/mission. For example:

Contract: Space Burial

Reward: $500,000

Send the coffin of Airy Kerbine to Kerbol.

Upon accepting the Contract, you get an item "Coffin of Airy Kerbine". Obvious, only one is available for you to put on your space-craft.

[ultimatevirus]

What I would like to see if there will be cost implemented in the game is that if I would launch a satellite that I would have the option to rent it to "generic company" for a certain daily price. This would mean that you would get a steady income while not being too overpowered

(maybe add required in space checks to balance it out?).

[Guest]

What I would like to see if there will be cost implemented in the game is that if I would launch a satellite that I would have the option to rent it to "generic company" for a certain daily price. This would mean that you would get a steady income while not being too overpowered

Launch a bunch of satellites and "rent" them. Set time-warp to x100,000, go to work. By the time you get home money is made meaningless.

Money/science/whatever per time is a bad idea for this game.