"difficulty" slider

[gendalf]

+ add a 'global' slider that will determine how much science you'l get from all of the data (both recovering and sending) when starting a new career (unique per career) like -70% - +10% or something..

currently you can probably almost max out the tech tree even without leaving the Kerbin SOI, after adding biomes for other planets potential amounts of science will be even higher.

Edited December 22, 2013 by gendalf

[vexx32]

Actually, you can max out the entire tree without ever leaving Kerbin's SOI. Difficulty options aren't exactly a new idea, but every time it turns up the general consensus tends to be that if there are going to be configurable difficulty options, each and every aspect should probably be individually configurable.

[jwenting]

and if there's difficulty options, there'll only end up to be tons and tons of mudslinging on the forums between people screaming that someone else wasn't "playing hard enough" for something to count as an achievement.

[tntristan12]

and if there's difficulty options, there'll only end up to be tons and tons of mudslinging on the forums between people screaming that someone else wasn't "playing hard enough" for something to count as an achievement.

Nah. Maybe a little bit, but generally the KSP forums are more civilized than other communities you find out there in the dark, untamed wilderness that is the internet. I don't see a problem with the idea of having difficulty sliders for certain things, but the thing is with KSP a lot of the difficulty is intrinsic - There's just a certain basic level of ingenuity and wit required to get the hang of rocket building and space flight that you simply can't quantify with a difficulty slider. So while you may be able to set the difficulty for things like "how much science you get per experiment" or "how quickly your engines overheat and explode," past a certain point you just gotta learn and grow on your own. Fortunately there's a whole community here to help with that!

[jcraft]

While adding science-gain adjusting slider would be nice idea, ultimately it doesn't seems to be a good solution to balancing the tech tree - in my opinion what we need in this case is not less science to get, but more advanced tech nodes to unlock - tech nodes that would require substantial amount of science but in return give really advanced techs like upgraded nuclear engines or even fusion drive at some point. Science system needs simply much more things to unlock - no less science to get.