of the usefulness of time-dependent gameplay

[Kegereneku]

Of the usefulness of time-dependent gameplay.

We've heard it suggested regularly now...

- Experiments taking time to complete

- Experiments output depending of time

- Rocket fabrication taking time

EDIT : I'm not defending those specific suggestion, I'm proposing to discuss the use of Time-based gameplay mechanism in a general way.

And I want to discuss it because ...Every single time I've heard the same "meaningless because of timewarp" arguments.

I used to agree with it but not anymore, quite the opposite now, thinking it make any time-based gameplay meaningless is IMO forgetting how it shaped KSP at its most basic level.

Time is the reason experimented players wanting to do a rendez-vous chose carefully their orbits.

Time is a critical parameter in the size of your rocket, enough to change between a efficient low-thrust nuclear engine or a cheap high-thrust chemical engine.

Time is a critical factor when you try to "do science" while descending through layers of atmosphere or passing close by a planet/moon.

At the very origin of KSP the Devs could have used realistic planets scale, but just going into orbit would take an hour.

I can hear some saying "No *****, thing happens after one another, big revolution there !"

But the earlier example can take a whole new meaning if we rethink about how we prioritize our space program to not waste a single second of our own time, even spent in timewarp. Anyway, I think we all agree that KSP just lack the tools (like the Kerbal Alarm Clock mods) to ease the planning.

Time-based gameplay may also be the most efficient solution to shape the gameplay in specific way. (myself I consider it one of the key for justifying satellites)

example :

If a experiment require 10 days of constant energy consumption to complete.

- It reestablish the importance of large battery for night-period, and larger solar panels.

- Influence how you choose your landing zone.

- It require some energy management, something quite underdeveloped as of now.

Lastly, career mods doesn't have a budget-management system yet, a system for which time-planning could also become very important.

Your thoughts ?

Edited December 16, 2013 by Kegereneku

[Nuke]

i think the game is already a massive time sink. i dont think any additional waiting is neccisary.

[Whirligig Girl]

I completely agree

[AngelLestat]

Every single time I've heard the same "meaningless because of timewarp" arguments.

still in your long post you dint solve that problem.. "timewarp".

What happens with new players who doesn´t learn yet how to plan a mission with low fuel consumption?

Even right now I find tedious plan a mission to avoid spent a lot of fuel. Some times I just want launch and concern about the problems later.

if in the future squad adds life support, then the duration of your missions would be an important factor.

[Kegereneku]

i think the game is already a massive time sink. i dont think any additional waiting is neccisary.

Compared to other game it's not much of a time sink, but on the other hand I'm used to let Mechjeb launch ship automatically while I get a drink.

still in your long post you dint solve that problem.. "timewarp".

What happens with new players who doesn´t learn yet how to plan a mission with low fuel consumption?

Even right now I find tedious plan a mission to avoid spent a lot of fuel. Some times I just want launch and concern about the problems later.

if in the future squad adds life support, then the duration of your missions would be an important factor.

I don't think you understood my "long post", I didn't had to "solve" anything because Timewarp don't nullify (all) time-based gameplay mechanism, it's even what could make some of them fun. Also this is a discussion not a suggestion.

Let's retake the examples above :

* A probes descending through an atmosphere and requiring you to spend at least 10 seconds in a "atmospheric zone" to get science done will require you to design it in consequence. Antenna are already playing on that by varying the speed of transmission, but everything is not set is stone.

Another one, way longer :

* A scanning probes needing to use 10 energy per second during (say) "10 days" to accomplish the job. Something that can't be done just on battery and ask for more solar panel. The result is that regardless if you timewarped it or not, you had to (1) put the satellite in orbit, not just a suborbital/escape trajectory (2) design it with those parameters in mind.

You are expected to use timewarp, because wasting your time wasn't the objective, it was to make sure you designed a satellite.

The only "problem" that come with it is that you may need to give clue to the player so he can learn it without trying and failing over again, but that's something developer learned how to do since the dawn of video game's history.

As for the "tediousness" of a economic mission (economic as in fuel-efficient), I think you exaggerate, it take as much time to plot an Hohmann transfer with mid-course plane-change, than a barely-brachistochrone direct transfer. Only things lacking are the ingame-tools to show the best launch windows and plan maneuver without direct control, but the game is still in development.

Edited December 1, 2013 by Kegereneku
precision

[regex]

Compared to other game it's not much of a time sink, but on the other hand I'm used to let Mechjeb launch ship automatically while I get a drink.

When having discussions about stock features in the game it is best to remain in a stock frame of mind. It is highly unlikely that we'll see MechJeb in the stock game; the devs have already made it pretty clear they're not into autopilots.

As for the "tediousness" of a economic mission, I think you exaggerate, it take as much time to plot an Hohmann transfer with mid-course plane-change, than a barely-brachistochrone direct transfer. Only things lacking are the ingame-tools to show the best launch windows and plan maneuver without direct control, but the game is still in development.

At least plotting and executing a maneuver is active gameplay; waiting around for something to happen is about the worst gameplay mechanic I can think of. Also, I'd much rather use an external porkchop plot and choose the launch window that meets my parameters rather than have the game tell me when the best launch windows are available. In fact, I think it would be best if the game didn't tell me what to do.

I think Nuke said it best above: We don't need to do any more waiting in this game and if I can timewarp through an objective then it just ends up being a tedious chore. If I can't timewarp and I actually do have to wait, then it's just crappy gameplay.

[LethalDose]

Again, at least part of the solution to the "meaningless because of time-warp" is the addition of a resource that is exhausted, even when a craft is in a stable orbit. Some form of a "support" resource would be ideal for this, either an explicit resource (e.g. oxygen or food) or an abstraction (e.g. life support). This provides a limit on how long a craft can stay aloft, and provides a more concrete difference between probes (don't require life support, but require more electricity) and manned missions (require life support).

[AngelLestat]

I don't think you understood my "long post", I didn't had to "solve" anything because Timewarp don't nullify (all) time-based gameplay mechanism, it's even what could make some of them fun. Also this is a discussion not a suggestion.

Ok, i will try to be more specific this time. Lets discuss.

- Experiments taking time to complete

If we talk about 10 seconds I dont see the problem, but what different it makes if is 10 seconds or just instant?

If is 1 day or 1 year in one place or orbit, then you will press start experiment follow of timewarp key and stop the timewarp in the right moment. This will become in a common mechanic for everything that you do.. Press start, timewarp, stop.

If you have the same commands over and over to do one task then you can simplify that task avoiding the common procedure in each action. I know that wait a specific time brings some realism to the gameplay, but when you have to do it in a mechanical way over and over it becomes tedious, so that is a sign that can be avoided.

Rocket fabrication taking time

same here.

Economics?

Any economic mechanics that uses time it will break any balance with timewarp.

Missions:

If you need to wait time to complete some procedures then you will realize that the best way to deal with that is parallel procedures and missions.

So your brain needs to focus in different missions-procedures at the same time. Of course this adds realism but also becomes very annoying. I personally like focus at one mission at the time. We are not NASA, a group of hundreds of people which each one focus in their own tasks.

If these it would be a multiplayer coperative game without timewarp mechanic, then all of this would make more sense.

Edited December 1, 2013 by AngelLestat

[boomerdog2000]

This discussion somewhat reminds of me of the construction system in the game Warframe. In order to build a new set of armor you have to wait 3 real days for it to be finished. This isn't nearly as much as a problem since you can do missions normally and still gather resources and things.

This is the key difference in ksp and other games that can pull off a waiting mechanic. If you're going to have a time based mechanic you have to give the player something to do during the meantime, or else they are just waiting for waiting's sake. In ksp the times required to do most of the things people want (rocket construction, timed experiments etc.) would realistically be measured in days. And all of these things would be required to play the game.

To build and fly your rocket (the core of the game) you would have to wait.

To perform an experiment (to get better rockets) you would have to wait.

In that other game I don't need that other set of armor. My current armor works fine and can get me through most situations, but I want that other suit of armor. The armor is not necessary for me to advance, but since I want it I am willing to wait for it.

TLDR: If you're going to have a waiting mechanic it has to be for something non-essential but useful and you have to give the player something useful and fun to do in the meantime.

[a.g.]

As I mentioned in an adjacent thread, there actually is one place in the current game where time warp already isn't an option: flying planes and driving rovers (4x warp isn't really significant). Currently this activity doesn't have any real in-game purpose to it, so generating a small amount of science over time when in motion may provide additional reward.

[Kegereneku]

My computer use to CRASH because of THIS SPECIFIC FORUM, and I lost all my tabs, it's a luck this forum have a "restore" fonction but I'm wondering now why the hell I would need one if the forum worked right.

When having discussions about stock features in the game it is best to remain in a stock frame of mind. It is highly unlikely that we'll see MechJeb in the stock game; the devs have already made it pretty clear they're not into autopilots.

And I agree with that, but KSP is nowhere as time hungry than game like Minecraft. Plus, overfocusing on the time aspect alone make you miss my points.

Reformulated again : Time-based Game Mechanic + Timewarp = NEW way to have FUN (that you hadn't realized before).

It's the "worst gameplay you can think of" because you misinterpreted what I said. Nobody suggested ([discussion] remember) that the game should FORCE YOU WITH A KNIFE UNDER YOUR THROAT to know when there's a windows. I just pointed out that the game could as well have built-in tools to help planning maneuvers node, since player usually look for those tools later as they get more experimented.

Aside, "" it would be best if the game didn't tell me what to do. "" is still exaggerated for what you really mean.

Ok, i will try to be more specific this time. Lets discuss.

Firstly, DO NOT OVER FOCUS over the 3 threads I quoted. This is not a suggestion and I'm NOT discussing those SPECIFIC suggestion, I'm talking about TIME as a gameplay mechanism.

- Experiments taking time to complete

If we talk about 10 seconds I dont see the problem, but what different it makes if is 10 seconds or just instant?

It's enough for a probes descending in an atmosphere to miss an atmospheric layer. On the ground it's enough to switch to a Kerbal in EVA and "do" an hypothetical action.

If is 1 day or 1 year in one place or orbit, then you will press start experiment follow of timewarp key and stop the timewarp in the right moment. This will become in a common mechanic for everything that you do.. Press start, timewarp, stop.

If you have the same commands over and over to do one task then you can simplify that task avoiding the common procedure in each action. I know that wait a specific time brings some realism to the gameplay, but when you have to do it in a mechanical way over and over it becomes tedious, so that is a sign that can be avoided.

You are not fully grasping the concept, yes it would become a "common mechanic" but the application can be anything.

This is not a pointless addition, this is a mechanism that require you to actually orbit the body you are studying to do the experiment. Giving a purpose to satellites, not just probes passing by.

The ground based equivalent incite you to either have an power-source independent from the sun, or land somewhere it will stay powered long enough to complete the experiment.

Rocket fabrication taking time

Nothing to say about that, I'm not the one suggesting this with a gameplay in mind, just taking note that things like "not being able to launch in time for the launch windows" can greatly influence the gameplay.

Edit : When I said "Economic" earlier I meant fuel-efficient.

If you need to wait time to complete some procedures then you will realize that the best way to deal with that is parallel procedures and missions.

So your brain needs to focus in different missions-procedures at the same time. Of course this adds realism but also becomes very annoying. I personally like focus at one mission at the time. We are not NASA, a group of hundreds of people which each one focus in their own tasks.

I think the only thing missing for this sort of multitasking is an User-Interface telling you when anything of importance happened, like [Experiment Complete on this flight] or [You planned a maneuver here] or [Flight X entered Y SoI].

You wouldn't be forced (or materially able) to actively manage like 10 missions in a short time frame. And Considering most satellite are built for one mission only, you may just come to say "good work, don't need you anymore."

Edit for precisions : For the sake of discussion, I'm supposing here that experiment can potentially continue without player-focus. But it's doesn't negate anything else.

ps: I'll modify the first message as it seem people are misunderstanding part of it

Edited December 1, 2013 by Kegereneku