Just what is the community to SQUAD?

[SlinkyBlue]

Gonna have to also disagree with the "it's too grindy" sentiment... we can't really know if it's grindy yet considering the only playable example of resources that's ever been around has been kethane, and that's vastly different from what the resources system would've been.

Interesting: May I ask, then, if planned resources was vastly different from what we've seen with Kethane, what really did your plan entail? How did it differ from Kethane?

Maybe people would understand more if they comprehend what it was that you were planning. Not being facetious; I think most people think Kethane as a starter template when they think what resources should be like.

[Alguien]

Perhaps. I have not watched any videos (I don't really have time to follow along with all of the released information on all of the various media, so I generally rely on the forum's community discussions to stay up to speed with what's going on). Perhaps because of that lack of exposure on my end, I'm not in any rush to pass judgment on the 0.23 science, as I haven't actually seen it yet.

That said, I enjoy 0.22 science as well, so I suppose my tolerance for and/or definition of "grindy" may not be in sync with others'. And I'm okay with that; that's just how it goes sometimes.

as far as i know the only changes to science in 0.23 are fixing the re-re-re-re-resending data and the additon of the space lab

other than that, people are saying "its grinding" because Maxmaps said it about resources, in gameplay mechanics there is not a big difference (if you played kethane you will know) you basically land in a target area where the resource is, extract it with a specific part and its done, same as science, but one gives you fuel for the rocket and the other gives you points

[Stargate525]

From another thread:

I was asked about the community reaction I see, but honestly this is a good point as any to answer to this thread as a whole.

The community is everything to us, and you can look around and find the work that had already been done into resources. It was a hard pill to swallow but in the end even after all that work we had to admit to ourselves that the feature was not only out of our scope, but was ending up grindy and simply not fun to play with. It wasn't a pleasant or easy decision whatsover, but it had to be made. We hope you can understand this, and we hope you trust us enough to believe us when we say we want nothing else than for KSP to be the best game it can possibly be. Resources was sadly outside of it.

Does this mean that resources are gone completely? Why is this out of your scope, but something you had said for two years was not only out of scope but IMPOSSIBLE, suddenly a main focus?

As for EULAs... They're to prevent frivolous lawsuits and have a questionable track record in court. Because they can do something does not mean that they should, and the only thing that 'we never promise updates' term in there does is prevent customers from suing them over broken dev promised updates. That does not mean that 'look at this stuff we're making' does not imply that it's actually going to show up in the game.

[OdinYggd]

NovaSilisko probably can't and shouldn't be giving a lot of detail on what the envisioned resources would have been like due to it having been created while he was acting under a nondisclosure agreement with Squad.

Although having talked to him at the time it really would have been incredible, but been very time consuming to develop and confusing to play with. We never got to the subject of how tedious it would be.

[NovaSilisko]

Interesting: May I ask, then, if planned resources was vastly different from what we've seen with Kethane, what really did your plan entail? How did it differ from Kethane?

Maybe people would understand more if they comprehend what it was that you were planning. Not being facetious; I think most people think Kethane as a starter template when they think what resources should be like.

Well, just check out the old charts and prerelease bits from earlier this year. The whole idea was that there'd be multiple tiers of stuff, with a variety of methods for scanning as opposed to just "enter orbit and timewarp". One bit that I always liked was that drilling would give you resources, as well as dirt, the latter of which could in the future, be used to perhaps make muncrete buildings to live in. Or, the dirt could be run through an HMU (Hail Mary Unit), to give you small amounts of various resources, as a bit of an extremely slow but useful safety mechanism (although the unit itself would have been sort of bulky, but useful in the event you needed to make an emergency landing and wanted to refuel)

Edit: @odin: There's a lot of prerelease info still in existence, especially the summary threads on reddit. If anyone wants to go dig them up, there's charts and pictures and explanations and all sorts of goodies. I'm only talking about stuff that was given out during the .19 and .20 development process. Although, the HMU's real name (Hail Mary Unit) was never actually announced, that was just an injoke of mine

Edited December 15, 2013 by NovaSilisko

[SlinkyBlue]

Well, just check out the old charts and prerelease bits from earlier this year. The whole idea was that there'd be multiple tiers of stuff, with a variety of methods for scanning as opposed to just "enter orbit and timewarp". One bit that I always liked was that drilling would give you resources, as well as dirt, the latter of which could in the future, be used to perhaps make muncrete buildings to live in. Or, the dirt could be run through an HMU (Hail Mary Unit), to give you small amounts of various resources, as a bit of an extremely slow but useful safety mechanism (although the unit itself would have been sort of bulky, but useful in the event you needed to make an emergency landing and wanted to refuel)

Edit: @odin: There's a lot of prerelease info still in existence, especially the summary threads on reddit. If anyone wants to go dig them up, there's charts and pictures and explanations and all sorts of goodies.

Sounds awesome to me! :(

EDIT: Thank you for your reply, I appreciate it.

[Eric S]

Interesting: May I ask, then, if planned resources was vastly different from what we've seen with Kethane, what really did your plan entail? How did it differ from Kethane?

I can't speak for the devs, but of what I remember, the difference was that a full kethane operation could consist of a single drill, a kethane tank, a single converter, and then output tanks of each type.

The chart itself had multiple gathering mechanisms and different converters, and in a few cases even had intermediate processing and results if I remember correctly. Needing multiple pre-conversion storage tanks would be a given. Depending on where you were gathering resources and what for, it might have been necessary to have two different gathering mechanisms and use them in separate locations.

The devs spoke of simplifying the process from that chart prior to having the project suspended, which probably would have made the process feel a little more simple like kethane, but I'm not sure how far it went.

[czokletmuss]

The chart itself had multiple gathering mechanisms and different converters, and in a few cases even had intermediate processing and results if I remember correctly. Needing multiple pre-conversion storage tanks would be a given. Depending on where you were gathering resources and what for, it might have been necessary to have two different gathering mechanisms and use them in separate locations.

You do remember correctly:

Honestly, I can't see how this could NOT be fun.

BTW take a look at the note near the nuclear engine:

Once tweakables come around, we can finally not have NTRs use oxidizer

I guess it got canned too..

Edited December 15, 2013 by czokletmuss

[Hyomoto]

Interesting: May I ask, then, if planned resources was vastly different from what we've seen with Kethane, what really did your plan entail? How did it differ from Kethane?

Maybe people would understand more if they comprehend what it was that you were planning. Not being facetious; I think most people think Kethane as a starter template when they think what resources should be like.

I think this should be obvious, don't you? Kethane exists as an ancillary to an unfinished idea. It is resources for the sake of resources, not because they particularly jive with or support the game as a whole. It's marshmallows in the cocoa, not the milk. Resources being put into sandbox mode is pointless because you have infinite 'capital' as it is, and putting it into career mode means, what? That you need to mine Kerbin for the materials to make ships to blast to the moon to get the materials you need to make it to Duna? What should I harvest? Fuel? Metals? How many do I need? How long do I wait?

Science is more ambiguous, it represents an anomalous form that you can get wherever and use wherever. In most respects its a bit casual-themed since you just need it, it could be gold coins or quail feathers. You aren't planning missions to Duna because you need a rare metal, you are doing it because you need science, whether or not you go to Duna is up to you. To quote egoraptor, "What's the difference between A, fighting a bunch of zombies to get hearts, collecting the hearts, returning to town to get an item to go to another part of the game and B, playing a game where you fight zombies that are obstructing your forward path to another part of the game? Answer, FOUR HOURS."

That is the version of resources people were looking at. You aren't building a sweet base on the moon because that's what you want to do anymore, you are doing it because the game needs you to do it. That IS grindy. Science is also grindy, but the flow just simply works better with the game as a whole because you gain science by doing things you want to do. The dwindling reserve pushes you to try other missions where it is still plentiful. As for Kethane? Kethane has you building a sweet base on the moon so you can use Kethane, once again it is resources for the sake of resources. It's really a lot like science, Kethane is just anything, rocket fuel, oxygen, food, whatever people need it to be. This is why I'm interested to see what they'll do with contracts as the question is, "Can you fail career mode?" Because if you can, why? And if you can't, why not? Plus, I get the feeling once career mode really starts to take shape, just like the real solar system mod, someone is going to do their damned best to make this idea. And I say, more power to them. However, if it were so easy to do I think we'd have seen it by now.

Edited December 15, 2013 by Hyomoto

[LaydeeDem]

Multiplayer is just a bandage. Squad knew we'd be pissed about the cancellation of resources, Spaceport 2, and the recent dev purges, so they announce multiplayer to cheer us up. Hooray!

[tntristan12]

Forgive my being tongue in cheek but upon hearing what could have been in store for us, I can't help but imagine the devs sitting around a table kicking around ideas and coming up with this:

"Oh yeah guys. Locating deposits through multiple scanning methods, engineering solutions to bring large pieces of machinery there and safely landing them precisely on site, and then creating a liveable base on another world out of the local resources. Sounds like a total grind...

I know! Let's design a lightweight module that you can attach to anything that lets you test goo in orbit around some planets so you can unlock fantastic new technologies that let you test the same goo in orbit around other planets! That's so much better."

I'm tired of this conversation. See you guys tomorrow when hopefully we'll have more official word on the matter. :\

[Galileo Kerbonaut]

You do remember correctly:

I used to look at this and dream of the day it would be implemented. Now I look at it and feel sad for that what will never come I really do hope Squad will take notice of the community and reconsider their decision to cut this out of the development.

[Sandworm]

Resources is already in-game. It's called science. You go somewhere and "mine" something which you then use. As of .23 you will also be bringing bringing it home. All the needed parts are there. A basic system could probably be implemented without any coding. A few cfg edits could add a resource tied to biomes. Building the parts models would take far longer. So any claim that it is too complex or burdensome to implement in the short term is disingenuous.

[czokletmuss]

Considering that according to this:

resources in one form or another are kinda needed to make LV-N not use liquid fuel and oxidizer, I hope they will show up in the game in the end.

[SlinkyBlue]

All of a sudden Eve's oceans seem much less magestic.......

[NovaSilisko]

I think this should be obvious, don't you? Kethane exists as an ancillary to an unfinished idea. It is resources for the sake of resources, not because they particularly jive with or support the game as a whole. It's marshmallows in the cocoa, not the milk. Resources being put into sandbox mode is pointless because you have infinite 'capital' as it is, and putting it into career mode means, what? That you need to mine Kerbin for the materials to make ships to blast to the moon to get the materials you need to make it to Duna? What should I harvest? Fuel? Metals? How many do I need? How long do I wait?

Science is more ambiguous, it represents an anomalous form that you can get wherever and use wherever. In most respects its a bit casual-themed since you just need it, it could be gold coins or quail feathers. You aren't planning missions to Duna because you need a rare metal, you are doing it because you need science, whether or not you go to Duna is up to you. To quote egoraptor, "What's the difference between A, fighting a bunch of zombies to get hearts, collecting the hearts, returning to town to get an item to go to another part of the game and B, playing a game where you fight zombies that are obstructing your forward path to another part of the game? Answer, FOUR HOURS."

That is the version of resources people were looking at. You aren't building a sweet base on the moon because that's what you want to do anymore, you are doing it because the game needs you to do it. That IS grindy. Science is also grindy, but the flow just simply works better with the game as a whole because you gain science by doing things you want to do. The dwindling reserve pushes you to try other missions where it is still plentiful. As for Kethane? Kethane has you building a sweet base on the moon so you can use Kethane, once again it is resources for the sake of resources. It's really a lot like science, Kethane is just anything, rocket fuel, oxygen, food, whatever people need it to be. This is why I'm interested to see what they'll do with contracts as the question is, "Can you fail career mode?" Because if you can, why? And if you can't, why not? Plus, I get the feeling once career mode really starts to take shape, just like the real solar system mod, someone is going to do their damned best to make this idea. And I say, more power to them. However, if it were so easy to do I think we'd have seen it by now.

I'm not sure where the idea that resources are 100% required for you to play the game comes from. You could fly your ships around to the moon and back, do interplentary missions just as before, and so on, without ever having touched any of the resource parts. Exactly the same deal as with kethane.

Also, I get the impression that you're talking about mining stuff from kerbin or other planets and using that to build rocket parts, as an absolute requirement for building rockets in the first place, which isn't the case at all. The plan had been off-world stuff, ISRU, for refueling, and maybe later on life support or offworld construction.

Edited December 15, 2013 by NovaSilisko

[Hyomoto]

Forgive my being tongue in cheek but upon hearing what could have been in store for us, I can't help but imagine the devs sitting around a table kicking around ideas and coming up with this:

"Oh yeah guys. Locating deposits through multiple scanning methods, engineering solutions to bring large pieces of machinery there and safely landing them precisely on site, and then creating a liveable base on another world out of the local resources. Sounds like a total grind...

I know! Let's design a lightweight module that you can attach to anything that lets you test goo in orbit around some planets so you can unlock fantastic new technologies that let you test the same goo in orbit around other planets! That's so much better."

I'm tired of this conversation. See you guys tomorrow when hopefully we'll have more official word on the matter. :\

I know, it's a total drag that the implemented a concept everyone could enjoy.

[Stargate525]

Resources being put into sandbox mode is pointless because you have infinite 'capital' as it is, and putting it into career mode means, what? That you need to mine Kerbin for the materials to make ships to blast to the moon to get the materials you need to make it to Duna? What should I harvest? Fuel? Metals? How many do I need? How long do I wait?

The same thing they mean on Earth. MONEY. I doubt you'll get to mine Kerbin, but you blast to the moon to get the materials you need to sell to finance your mission to Duna.

OR

You blast to the mun and build a place to refuel, so that you don't have to keep launching 400 part monstrosities or a dozen refueling trips from Kerbin, wasting you time and money in launches.

OR

You blast to the mun and build a permanent science station, which is run by the stuff around them and never needs to be resupplied.

OR

You blast to the mun and build another launch pad, which lets you get to Jool and all that science that much easier.

Or any number of other reasons.

[SlinkyBlue]

I am under the impression that resources would need to offer significant advantages over parts that you can use without it.

For instance, because the devs have been saying for awhile that they are going to implement a stellar body research/discovery feature, I actually had the impression in my mind that resources could have been used for an orbital telescope system or something..

[tntristan12]

I think this should be obvious, don't you?

No I don't. Let me explain...

Kethane exists as an ancillary to an unfinished idea. It is resources for the sake of resources, not because they particularly jive with or support the game as a whole.

Yeah, except for allowing you to refuel and (when combined with XPL) build ships on other planets, allowing you to create jumping off points for farther worlds. A concept which is popular not only in science fiction, but being considered for real-life exploration plans as well.

It's marshmallows in the cocoa, not the milk. Resources being put into sandbox mode is pointless because you have infinite 'capital' as it is, and putting it into career mode means, what? That you need to mine Kerbin for the materials to make ships to blast to the moon to get the materials you need to make it to Duna? What should I harvest? Fuel? Metals? How many do I need? How long do I wait?

Resources as implemented by Kethane are *not* useless in sandbox mode. See my previous statement for an example. Besides, setting up a refueling base infrastructure is entertaining in and of itself, which is kind of the point of sandbox mode: "do what you want because it's fun, not because you have to." If doing things because you have to bothers you so much then don't start a career mode. :\

Science is more ambiguous, it represents an anomalous form that you can get wherever and use wherever. In most respects its a bit casual-themed since you just need it, it could be gold coins or quail feathers.

So your previous argument against resources was that it's a bad idea because it's something the game forces you to mine so you can progress in the game... But that's exactly what science points do. You've even admitted that!

You aren't planning missions to Duna because you need a rare metal, you are doing it because you need science, whether or not you go to Duna is up to you. To quote egoraptor, "What's the difference between A, fighting a bunch of zombies to get hearts, collecting the hearts, returning to town to get an item to go to another part of the game and B, playing a game where you fight zombies that are obstructing your forward path to another part of the game? Answer, FOUR HOURS."

Again, the same logic applies to resources, but gathering resources is more challenging and more entertaining.

That is the version of resources people were looking at. You aren't building a sweet base on the moon because that's what you want to do anymore, you are doing it because the game needs you to do it. That IS grindy. Science is also grindy, but the flow just simply works better with the game as a whole because you gain science by doing things you want to do.

Ultimately it amounts to the same thing. The only reason you're gathering science is so you can progress further in the game. You could however set up a refueling base just for the heck of it, not just because you need to.

The dwindling reserve pushes you to try other missions where it is still plentiful. As for Kethane? Kethane has you building a sweet base on the moon so you can use Kethane, it's really not all that much better but at least you don't HAVE to do it. This is why I'm interested to see what they'll do with contracts as the question is, "Can you fail career mode?" Because if you can, why? And if you can't, why not?

See my first statement in this post.

[iDan122]

Right from the Terms of service:

Please keep in mind:

Squad is not under any obligation to release any updates, expansions or titles at any time. Each release may very well be the last one.

Squad is under no obligation to implement any given set of features prior to the final release for KSP or any future title. All posted lists of planned features are unofficial and do not imply a promise by Squad to deliver anything listed in them.

Squad reserves the right to add, remove and modify content on any of its software at their own discretion, without prior notice.

Squad is under no obligation to maintain any level of communication with the player community, choosing to do so at their own discretion.

The minimum hardware specifications are posted for reference purposes only. KSP is a work-in-progress, and as such, may not perform as expected under any given hardware configuration.

The Software is made available as-is, and may contain bugs and/or manifest undesirable behaviour. Squad does not guarantee any level of stability or performance for the Software, and takes no responsibility in the event of data loss or damage ocurred as a direct or indirect result of using the software. Use at your own risk.

Also EULA point 5 is a good one to read as well..

[TMS]

Before I go any further, I'll state that I'm perfectly happy with having multiplayer, thought the original resources diagram was probably a little bloated, and have long understood that the mod community will ultimately provide the depth to the game that I want. I generally trust SQUAD to get it right in the end, even if my faith has been shaken with the last few updates and their staff turnover. Anyway, that being said...

The genesis of this latest PR gaffe is the same as the DLC fiasco: there is no clear and official definition of what is in scope and what is out of scope. For all the talk of 'scope completion', I don't think anyone actually knows what that is - something Felipe acknowledged in his Twitch broadcasts. What we have is a ropey wiki page, and four bulletpoints on the main site for planned features. No official roadmap on the main store site, no deliverables, no "we will do x" in sight.

The result was (and currently is) a lot of contradictory ideas about what people were 'promised' or what they assumed they'd bought.

In comparison, when you have a clear definition of what is a deliverable, it doesn't really matter if a dev runs his mouth at an inopportune time, nor does it matter if you change the specifics of the content... because both community and developer have a clear-enough and mutual understanding of what is happening and what outputs they are being held to.

The game-playing community contains a sizeable number of people who will behave in a petulant, dramatic and emotionally spiteful way. Recent threads are evidence of that. You'll never get away from it, but you can minimise their (emotional and financial) effect by minimising the opportunities for misunderstanding. I've noticed that SQUAD don't do that very well, which is surprising for a PR company.

The Devs have said on a number of occasions that they don't plan each update in advance, more that they sit down at the start of each update process and determine what will be included. I guess they feel they can work like this because of the very nebulous concept of what is in and out of scope of the final game; and continue in this style because they prefer the creative and legal freedom it affords.

I wonder two things:

1. Will the cost-benefit still favour a nebulous output definition as the game becomes bigger on people's radar and, consequently, misunderstandings become more costly?

2. If SQUAD walked away from the DLC fiasco incorrectly believing that the solution was more PR people and firing staff (rather than having a publicly defined scope), then I wonder if lightening will strike twice.... twice?

[ZedNova]

Considering that according to this:

resources in one form or another are kinda needed to make LV-N not use liquid fuel and oxidizer, I hope they will show up in the game in the end.

I thought i read somewhere that they were going to be using a simpler version of this.

[PDCWolf]

I think this should be obvious, don't you? Kethane exists as an ancillary to an unfinished idea. It is resources for the sake of resources, not because they particularly jive with or support the game as a whole. It's marshmallows in the cocoa, not the milk. Resources being put into sandbox mode is pointless because you have infinite 'capital' as it is, and putting it into career mode means, what? That you need to mine Kerbin for the materials to make ships to blast to the moon to get the materials you need to make it to Duna? What should I harvest? Fuel? Metals? How many do I need? How long do I wait?

Science is more ambiguous, it represents an anomalous form that you can get wherever and use wherever. In most respects its a bit casual-themed since you just need it, it could be gold coins or quail feathers. You aren't planning missions to Duna because you need a rare metal, you are doing it because you need science, whether or not you go to Duna is up to you. To quote egoraptor, "What's the difference between A, fighting a bunch of zombies to get hearts, collecting the hearts, returning to town to get an item to go to another part of the game and B, playing a game where you fight zombies that are obstructing your forward path to another part of the game? Answer, FOUR HOURS."

That is the version of resources people were looking at. You aren't building a sweet base on the moon because that's what you want to do anymore, you are doing it because the game needs you to do it. That IS grindy. Science is also grindy, but the flow just simply works better with the game as a whole because you gain science by doing things you want to do. The dwindling reserve pushes you to try other missions where it is still plentiful. As for Kethane? Kethane has you building a sweet base on the moon so you can use Kethane, once again it is resources for the sake of resources. It's really a lot like science, Kethane is just anything, rocket fuel, oxygen, food, whatever people need it to be. This is why I'm interested to see what they'll do with contracts as the question is, "Can you fail career mode?" Because if you can, why? And if you can't, why not? Plus, I get the feeling once career mode really starts to take shape, just like the real solar system mod, someone is going to do their damned best to make this idea. And I say, more power to them. However, if it were so easy to do I think we'd have seen it by now.

Resources is not a limitator as the bad thought-out science is. Resources is a mostly endgame thing, when you completed the tech tree and you start YOUR own space program, so that you have something to do on other planets. It also is the key to sustainable extra-planetary bases (When life support arrives), and is the key to good reputation and funding when that arrives too.

On sandbox, is something else to do when you get to a planet other than running trough non-collision-able rocks.

[SlinkyBlue]

Resources is not a limitator as the bad thought-out science is. Resources is a mostly endgame thing, when you completed the tech tree and you start YOUR own space program, so that you have something to do on other planets. It also is the key to sustainable extra-planetary bases (When life support arrives), and is the key to good reputation and funding when that arrives too.

On sandbox, is something else to do when you get to a planet other than running trough non-collision-able rocks.

I think this is key. I like the science tree in the sense that I have to tailor my missions to a specific purpose, and that I actually have a reason to go to planets. But, then what? Resources fill that VERY IMPORTANT gap in gameplay.