Do you think rocket construction will ever "take time"?

[Deadweasel]

Mod mod mod... it keeps coming back to that. If this discussion is about a proposal for a mod, then it is and has been in the wrong section.

Perhaps if a moderator would kindly move it so that people don't get the wrong idea (even though we all know that wasn't the original intent)?

The only people getting the wrong idea are the ones who read the original post and still don't get the point. The reason the idea of a mod keeps coming up is that is what people are calling out, rather than be faced with the prospect of this idea being adopted in the vanilla game. In other words, they'd rather it was a mod so they can just ignore the idea instead.

This whole thread is about the idea of rocket launches actually taking time in the game universe before they're ready to launch. That it spawned a new mod project has nothing to do with that fact, and moving it to the dev forum wouldn't really be appropriate, especially given the format of the original question that was posed for discussion.

As to why it would be redundant? Here is the mod development thread that takes this idea and attempts to do something practical with it, already in the Add-on Development forum.

[xvdBanksbvx]

After reading through the last 17 pages of this thread i am now in favour of having a form of construction cost paid in game time, in stock career mode. One reason is how to get into failure states in career mode especially if difficulty levels are included i.e. through miss management of time, resources and direction you have dug your space program into a hole it can't get out of.

Now the way i see it being beneficial is; making management of your budget and contracts a proper challenge rather than something that is nice but ultimately an afterthought, now i say this because without having time properly valued in any game with even the slightest management aspect makes that aspect feel bland and somewhat of a chore, think AC3 and running the manor.

Now i know not all people want that sort of challenge but still want the feeling of running such a big thing as a space program so in that area you can only satisfy one group or make some form of difficulty levels but that's a whole different topic.

[HeadHunter67]

The reason the idea of a mod keeps coming up is that is what people are calling out, rather than be faced with the prospect of this idea being adopted in the vanilla game. In other words, they'd rather it was a mod so they can just ignore the idea instead.

We've already pointed out why it's a bad idea in the stock game (people could just timewarp past the dealy), but you are among those who say things like:

why wouldn't they also look at a mod that adds time delay for rocket building or parts ordering the same way?

If it's a suggestion for a change to the stock game, it belongs in Suggestions and Development Discussion. If it's about a mod, it belongs in Add-On Requests and Support.

Either way, it doesn't belong here.

[vexx32]

Moved to Suggestions and Development Discussion.

[LethalDose]

18 pages is TL;DR for me.

However, I think it would be reasonable to have construction time for parts, but have rockets assembled from available parts ready immediately.

[Artophwar]

18 pages is TL;DR for me.

However, I think it would be reasonable to have construction time for parts, but have rockets assembled from available parts ready immediately.

I was thinking the same thing. That time is another cost to the part along with credits. Once you hit launch all the part's "time cost" is added together and instantly added to your in game clock. There would be no timewarping past the construction. You would just appear on the launch pad how every many days/months it took to build the rocket. This would add a lot of strategy to the management side of career mode.

[tetryds]

if the game would just auto timewarp ahead automatically depending on the complexity of my ship im fine with it

[boomerdog2000]

if the game would just auto timewarp ahead automatically depending on the complexity of my ship im fine with it

And what if that interferes with current missions you have going? Sorry your interplanetary mission swung around the planet and off into deep space because we were autowarping. Even having time costs for parts instead of the whole rocket doesn't add anything to the game, it just adds something that takes time for no other reason than taking time, with nothing to do in the meantime.

[tetryds]

And what if that interferes with current missions you have going? Sorry your interplanetary mission swung around the planet and off into deep space because we were autowarping. Even having time costs for parts instead of the whole rocket doesn't add anything to the game, it just adds something that takes time for no other reason than taking time, with nothing to do in the meantime.

it was mentioned that he "warping" would be instant, and missing an interplanetary mission due to that is bad planning

[Deadweasel]

Honestly I think that instead of some kind of forced wait screen, it should be more like "Okay, it'll be ready to go in XX time."

During that time, you can go elsewhere to do whatever mission management you need to, or simply warp yourself to that time if you have nothing else going on (or nothing time-sensitive, at least).

Maybe show a little timer in the corner of the screen, and when it expires, your ship is on the pad when you go back to it (the same as you would for a launch that you flipped away from before firing off).

In other words, you have to wait for the ship to be "built", but you aren't forced to sit and wait for just that event while it's happening.

[Superfluous J]

it was mentioned that he "warping" would be instant, and missing an interplanetary mission due to that is bad planning

No, it's bad game design.

What if you have 10 interplanetary flights, each arriving at their destinations 10 days apart, and your ship takes 11 days to construct? Do you wait 100 days to launch or do you lose a mission? Or do you do what any other game player would do and think, "This is the most idiotic restriction ever, I think I'll go play anything else instead."

[boomerdog2000]

it was mentioned that he "warping" would be instant, and missing an interplanetary mission due to that is bad planning

How is it bad planning if my mission is already on its way when the game autowarps it past its encounter because I was trying something else around Kerbin? My point was merely that just having time warp automatically, even if it is instant, will mess people's games up unless you give them an option to warp or not.

[Ekku Zakku]

Really? I already have a feature in my mod that stops time warp if a ship crosses from one SOI to another... It's easy to implement and makes for much better gameplay. And going along with that...

Honestly I think that instead of some kind of forced wait screen, it should be more like "Okay, it'll be ready to go in XX time."

During that time, you can go elsewhere to do whatever mission management you need to, or simply warp yourself to that time if you have nothing else going on (or nothing time-sensitive, at least).

Maybe show a little timer in the corner of the screen, and when it expires, your ship is on the pad when you go back to it (the same as you would for a launch that you flipped away from before firing off).

In other words, you have to wait for the ship to be "built", but you aren't forced to sit and wait for just that event while it's happening.

This is essentially what I'm doing, but also having a "warp until ready" button to allow a user to skip dealing with other flights just to get their ship ready. Anywho, off to work on the mod some more XD

[tetryds]

No, it's bad game design.

What if you have 10 interplanetary flights, each arriving at their destinations 10 days apart, and your ship takes 11 days to construct? Do you wait 100 days to launch or do you lose a mission? Or do you do what any other game player would do and think, "This is the most idiotic restriction ever, I think I'll go play anything else instead."

Deadweasel's idea solves that issue

what i mean is that it feels a lot greater to have to skip a certain ammount of time for a rocket

its sick that we can just setup a satellite relay and send whatever ammount of ships to mun within 2 or 3 days

Edited December 1, 2013 by tetryds

[boomerdog2000]

Deadweasel's idea solves that issue

what i mean is that it feels a lot greater to have to skip a certain ammount of time for a rocket

its sick that we can just setup a satellite relay and send whatever ammount of ships to mun within 2 or 3 days

Why does the in-game time matter so much? The achievement in your satellite relay isn't "It took 90 in-game days to do this." The achievement is "I launched all of these satellites into the exact right orbit and they all do exactly what they are supposed to do. I'm awesome!" The rewards do not lay in some imaginary manipulable game clock. The rewards are the satisfaction you get from your idea working exactly as you planned, or even better, your idea finally working after many failures.

[Kegereneku]

I tend to agree with boomerdog2000's point. Instant Rocket construction may be a "necessary break from reality"

It's not that the idea is impossible...

- Having the choice to warp until the rocket is ready, would meet the demand to be able to timewarp from KSC.

- "Mission Planification tools" could be compatible with it

What I find problematic is how to deal with last-minute modification, you just saved and prepared the rocket to launch and suddenly you see that you forgot to add something and have to go back to the VAB.

[tetryds]

What I find problematic is how to deal with last-minute modification, you just saved and prepared the rocket to launch and suddenly you see that you forgot to add something and have to go back to the VAB.

you would just use the revert button and the time would warp back

[Kegereneku]

...and hope that I don't have the worst timing ever and need to redo a burn that happened during Construction-Time. Though. It is very unlikely, and shouldn't be too bothering if the construction laps is short enough for nothing to happen in between.

By the way, I though of an alternative way of "building things". What if the final assembly took no time at all, but you had to tell your guys "Make sure at least 10 part X are available" ?

Didn't though of any details, but it could be why the Devs added a number of part case. It could be for something else though, more like "We only have X parts you can buy" or something. It's a shot in the dark.

[razark]

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this afternoon is out, of landing a Kerbal on the mun and returning him safely to Kerbin."

--President John F. Kernedy

[Ekku Zakku]

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this afternoon is out, of landing a Kerbal on the mun and returning him safely to Kerbin."

--President John F. Kernedy

I'm crying over here XD

What I find problematic is how to deal with last-minute modification, you just saved and prepared the rocket to launch and suddenly you see that you forgot to add something and have to go back to the VAB.

Thus why my mod will have a "Simulate Launch" button, which possibly won't handle every case of that, but will still help. Later on I'll probably add a feature to update a rocket that is in construction or ready, but hasn't been put on the launchpad (and only adding or subtracting the time from the previous version, if parts were added or removed, respectively). This will make quicksaves useful if you're doing another mission, say, after you made a burn as Kegereneku mentioned, but only afterwards notice a flaw.

[Artophwar]

Why does the in-game time matter so much? The achievement in your satellite relay isn't "It took 90 in-game days to do this." The achievement is "I launched all of these satellites into the exact right orbit and they all do exactly what they are supposed to do. I'm awesome!" The rewards do not lay in some imaginary manipulable game clock. The rewards are the satisfaction you get from your idea working exactly as you planned, or even better, your idea finally working after many failures.

That is fine for sandbox mode. All your achievements are their own rewards. In career mode time management should be included. Getting that satellite network up in 90 days could give you bonus money from the government or something. The same with getting a Mun or interplanetary missions done in a certain time frame.

I am thinking of XCOM as an example of a time strategy layer. You have to excavate places in your base in advance, and plan your power stations, workshops, satellites, ect. They all have time requirements and messing up your time planning can cost you the game. I would like career mode to be a more structured game mode. It should be a bit more on the Space Agency Simulation side and Sandbox mode is where you can go to just play around with no restrictions.

I think the mod is a great proof of concept and I hope that by 1.0 something similar will be included by default in career mode.

[Franklin]

Honestly, there's a lot of waiting in this game. Waiting to gravity assist, waiting to hit target apoapsis, waiting for the next transfer window, waiting to match velocities, waiting to come into docking range, waiting for the docking ports to kiss, waiting for fuel to be transferred, waiting for science to be transmitted, then waiting for your batteries to recharge. You wait a lot. But where you don't wait is at the creation point. You can slap together a bunch of parts and throw them out onto the platform and spacebar your way into the air. It's the core, enjoyable, fundamental part of the game, the rocket building/launching, and I don't think we need any more instances where you wait in this game.

[Kegereneku]

Most of that waiting is done with timewarp, sincerely I really DON'T see any excessive wait. Do you want instant everything ? instant throttle to max, instant warp to destination, instantly planting flag (no animation), is that really what we want ? Let's not exaggerate

It's like playing a FPS and being bothered by the time of reloading a weapon or running to the next objective, playing strategy and waiting for units to be produced, playing a flight simulator and waiting that physics run its proper course.

[boomerdog2000]

That is fine for sandbox mode. All your achievements are their own rewards. In career mode time management should be included. Getting that satellite network up in 90 days could give you bonus money from the government or something. The same with getting a Mun or interplanetary missions done in a certain time frame.

Fair enough. I forgot to consider time requirements for missions. Although the times could just as easily be toned down to work with the current system.

I am thinking of XCOM as an example of a time strategy layer. You have to excavate places in your base in advance, and plan your power stations, workshops, satellites, ect. They all have time requirements and messing up your time planning can cost you the game. I would like career mode to be a more structured game mode. It should be a bit more on the Space Agency Simulation side and Sandbox mode is where you can go to just play around with no restrictions.

I see your point, and I love XCOM, but the difference is the game gives you missions and things to do during the waiting. The facilities and things you are waiting for may be necessary to succeed in your next mission, but they are not necessary to attempt the next mission. Waiting for rockets to be built would be waiting to even play the game, which I am not a fan of.

[Ekku Zakku]

Honestly, there's a lot of waiting in this game. Waiting to gravity assist, waiting to hit target apoapsis, waiting for the next transfer window, waiting to match velocities, waiting to come into docking range, waiting for the docking ports to kiss, waiting for fuel to be transferred, waiting for science to be transmitted, then waiting for your batteries to recharge. You wait a lot. But where you don't wait is at the creation point. You can slap together a bunch of parts and throw them out onto the platform and spacebar your way into the air. It's the core, enjoyable, fundamental part of the game, the rocket building/launching, and I don't think we need any more instances where you wait in this game.

Why wait until the ship is ready then? Why not go out and actually manage time like a proper space program would and launch multiple missions? That's what I'm going to gain the most from the mod, since I don't like "linear launching", or doing each mission after you finish the last one, ad infinitum. Currently I don't have motivation to run multiple missions at once, but having to wait to launch will make me want to multitask so I won't have to (even though warping until ready will take essentially no time at all, just adding that extra roleplay element helps).