[Discussion] Questionable design decisions

[macegee]

Disclaimer: This thread is not a suggestion, and especially not a demand. Just a civil discussion among the players. Author loves KSP, mods and the community, and simply wants to hear your thoughts.

Hi everyone. Most of the time, I try to voice my concerns to the devs directly, but I’ve realized that they don’t really listen. So now I want to talk to the general public to see if I’m not the only one who’s worried with how things are going.

So here’s the list of things that I find highly questionable and, actually, wrong:

1. My favorite, and a big one - lack of Delta-v indicator for ships and other important editor/in-flight info. According to devs, it would “ruin†the mystery of constructing stuff. In my opinion, the only thing that's ruined is time. Lack of such info wastes our own time that we could spend actually flying instead of re-building or calculating delta-v by hand. Also, here’s an inconsistency - there’s an actual delta-v indicator for maneuvers, and lots of detailed info about the planets. But why, why no more basic info?

I get why some of the players don’t care much about delta-v and efficiency. Because the base game doesn't tell them anything in the first place, and they don’t know the difference between playing with Delta-v displayed and without it! So they consider it as a normal thing. I haven’t used delta-v concept for a YEAR of playing KSP, until actually finding the formulas and started to calculate it by hand. Then quickly got Kerbal Engineer, since it’s PITA to calculate things by hand. It takes time, and I’m here to play the game. But now that I know what delta-v is, I can’t see how can I play without using it.

2. Lack of reentry heat. As a Tsialkovsky's rocket equation, it's quite important part of rocketry. Unfortunately, I think devs won’t ever implement it, at least not in a base game. And even if they would, as it was said, it would be done with something like “radiators†that diffuse heat, so they won’t “limit possible designs to take any shapes player might wantâ€Â. Apparently, there’s no such thing as inflatable heat shields and dynamic part creation (procedural parts, like fairings and heat shields).

Also, reentry heat makes returning stuff back to Kerbin even more rewarding. As a bonus, it creates more ways to die and explode, which is kinda a theme for KSP. And risks of losing Kerbals vs probe gives you even more choice here. But I’ll talk about probes a bit later.

3. Tech tree as a mean to introduce parts to the new players (being a tutorial). This is just plain silly. Tech tree is not a tutorial, it’s a tech tree for a career mode. Tutorial (Training) is a separate thing in the main menu. I get that it’s still WIP, but I’m talking about the whole concept that developers try to follow here. Harv actually SAID that it’s suppose to introduce parts to the new players, being a tutorial. But a tech tree is actually a part of the tycoon part of the game, so there should be different logic behind it, how it expands.

4. Manned flights give too much advantages over the use of unmanned probes, while there’s little reason not to use kerbals. Also, lack of probe-sized experiments and few scientific equipment. Again, I get that it’s still WIP, but the concept that devs, according to their own words, would use here is that probes would be just cheaper to use than kerbals. But why should they give that much science? You can get so much of it by doing EVA reports from polar orbit by flying over different biomes. You still can’t scoop soil samples with unmanned modules. Or even take photographs and million of other readings. Astronauts in space are mostly there for servicing (mostly to control and repair). Electronics do most of the stuff. Here’s more. Kerbals don’t need to eat or breathe. But probes need to eat, electricity. I can go on here, but that should be enough to make a point.

5. No public roadmap. It’s bad for an early-access game (TotalBiscuit gave a good speech about this issue not some long time ago

). People have to be able to know what’s planned, and what isn’t. Priorities, features that are considered as a "may bes", know about overall progress of the game. But whatever, you can keep people in the dark and be vague with most of the dev blogs. But it seems that they don’t even have their own internal road map. Even if there’s, they don’t stick to it, which defies the whole purpose of having one.

6. “There’s a mod for it, stop asking for it†attitude. Devs don’t say that in our face literally, it’d be outrageous if they did, but you know what I’m talking about here, right? I love mods. But they’re not the base game. They’re not maintained by a paid developers. They have bugs, compatibility issues and brake with each update, and frequently get abandoned.

The problem with such attitude is that it comes up all the time when someone's not happy with the stock game. Mods are great, but if people think there's something wrong with the game, they have a right to criticize it, without being told to use mods and to create your own game.

And #6 brings me to my final words. The biggest problem with everything I’ve just talked about is that I’m 99% sure that it won’t change until the 1.0 release. It saddens me to say that the devs made me don’t care about what they do anymore, because of lots of their questionable (and wrong) actions. So while I still play with joy, I have to use mods, have to start over and over again every once in a while because of it, which is okay for an early-access game if you think of it. But now I just wait for them to finish. Not to see a finished product, but so that mods would stop break and I can have persistence peacefully.

It's a long post already, and I probably missed or forgot something, but I'll stop for now. What do you think?

Edited February 8, 2014 by macegee

[WhiteKnuckle]

What do you think?

I think KSP is one of the most amazing games of all time, I think it's vastly improved from where it started, and I think we're still a long way off from v1.0

[The Error]

1. A very valid point - maybe have a toggle-able display, for those who enjoy knowing those numbers?

2. While heat would give the game more depth, it would, always, limit how people can build ships. Inflatable heat shields only get so big, and dynamic part creation (?)...

Whackjob-esque creations would never survive a reentry heat update. So I have to say I prefer the status quo here.

3. The tech tree. IF it was actually in a tutorial, it would be perfect. But it's not, so it could use a restructuring. But I'm not entirely sure what you dislike about it.

4. While probes do need some expansion, I feel that they exist mainly for players who don't like risking their cute green guys on dangerous missions. Plus, seeing the goofy grin on a Kerb's face when he steps out onto another celestial body is fun.

5. Even if the devs had an internal roadmap (they might?), I feel that revealing it would be a bad idea. It goes back to the whole release dates thing, where people see feature X on a roadmap and whine that it's not coming sooner.

6. The devs can only do so much. They can't cram each and every awesome feature into the game. There ARE mods, and they're fun, and you should use them. Also, that attitude comes from the fact that even going full steam ahead on the game, SQUAD is fairly small and trying to cram extra features in may reduce the basic game to even buggier than the mods. Patience, grasshopper.

[DeepSpaceDutch]

Most of the time, I try to voice my concerns to the devs directly, but I’ve realized that they don’t really listen.

Maybe they are too busy making KSP even more great than it already is too listen to an anonymous person on a forum who thinks he/she knows better than the people actually making the game?

So now I want to talk to the general public to see if I’m not the only one who’s worried with how things are going.

Ever thought of going into politics?

According to devs, it would “ruin†the mystery of constructing stuff. In my opinion, the only thing it ruins is time.

Any time spend tinkering with rockets can never be ruined time for me...

It wastes our own time that we could spend actually flying

Our? We? Please don't speak for me, i really don't feel the way you do.

Also, reentry heat makes returning stuff back to Kerbal even more rewarding.

Wow, you really know what everyone wants, huh?

But I’ll talk about probes a bit later.

Ow goody......

I get that it’s still WIP

I don't think you do.

People have to be able to know what’s planned, and what isn’t.

WHY??!

Devs don’t say that in our face literally, it’d be outrageous if they did, but you know what I’m talking about here, right?

Nope, I have no idea what you're on about. There's a base game, there are mods for people who want more. So? You think the devs should incorporate every popular mod? Any idea how much time, money and complexity that adds? Don't you think it's more important they concentrate on finishing the base game before incorporating a bunnyload of mods?

What do you think?

I think you can spend your time a bit more constructive.

Edited February 7, 2014 by KasperVld
bunnyload.

[macegee]

I think KSP is one of the most amazing games of all time, I think it's vastly improved from where it started, and I think we're still a long way off from v1.0

You're right. KSP is amazing, I've been playing it for 1.5 years already, and still play. But the problem is, we're actually not so far away from 1.0 in terms of features. Each update takes about 2-3 months, and KSP should be scope complete (as I understand it - feature complete for 1.0) about the end of this year. So it'd mean not so much time for things to change. But even then, I'm talking about the concepts behind it, that devs use.

1. A very valid point - maybe have a toggle-able display, for those who enjoy knowing those numbers?

2. While heat would give the game more depth, it would, always, limit how people can build ships. Inflatable heat shields only get so big, and dynamic part creation (?)...

Whackjob-esque creations would never survive a reentry heat update. So I have to say I prefer the status quo here.

3. The tech tree. IF it was actually in a tutorial, it would be perfect. But it's not, so it could use a restructuring. But I'm not entirely sure what you dislike about it.

4. While probes do need some expansion, I feel that they exist mainly for players who don't like risking their cute green guys on dangerous missions. Plus, seeing the goofy grin on a Kerb's face when he steps out onto another celestial body is fun.

5. Even if the devs had an internal roadmap (they might?), I feel that revealing it would be a bad idea. It goes back to the whole release dates thing, where people see feature X on a roadmap and whine that it's not coming sooner.

6. The devs can only do so much. They can't cram each and every awesome feature into the game. There ARE mods, and they're fun, and you should use them. Also, that attitude comes from the fact that even going full steam ahead on the game, SQUAD is fairly small and trying to cram extra features in may reduce the basic game to even buggier than the mods. Patience, grasshopper.

2. I meant to say "procedural". There're procedural created fairings. For guys like Whackjob, there can be procedural heat shields.

3. The whole arrangement of it. It's not meant for a tycoon style of gameplay, as it should be, but for a tutorial.

4. As I see it, you should loose more prestige (those 3 prestige-money-science currencies that Harv told us about) if your Kerbals die. Either way, both ways of flying (manned and unmanned) should be supported equally. That's my point.

5. TotalBiscuit is a better speaker in this case, so I'll refer to his

, as I did in the OP.

6. I get that. But that's what roadmaps are for, and priorities. If people know what's a priority and what isn't, they know what to expect.

[Scramble]

Most of the time, I try to voice my concerns to the devs directly, but I’ve realized that they don’t really listen. So now I want to talk to the general public to see if I’m not the only one who’s worried with how things are going.

What do you think?

What I think? Four things. (1) I am not worried how things are going. (2) If you want devs to listen, then stating devs don't listen to the community is not likely going to give you a more positive reaction. There is a difference between not listening, and following the forums but not going along with or commenting every single suggestion that comes up. (3) If you scan through the forum, I expect you will find existing threads on all these topics. They are not "new ideas". Having some experience with SW development, I can tell you that any dev team needs to prioritize - plus there is also a trade-off between simplicity for the end-user vs adding more features. I would not be surprised if there are some players who prefer not having access to delta V numbers, as it forces them to do things the intuitive trial-and-error way - which may be more fun for some people. (4) There are excellent mods which provides various functionality that you are requesting.

Edited February 7, 2014 by Scramble
typo

[macegee]

If you want devs to listen, then stating devs don't listen to the community is not likely going to give you a more positive reaction. There is a difference between not listening, and following the forums but not going along with or commenting every single suggestion that comes up. (3) If you scan through the forum, I expect you will find existing threads on all these topics. They are not "new ideas". Having some experience with SW development, I can tell you that any dev team needs to prioritize - plus there is also a trade-off between simplicity for the end-user vs adding more features. I would not be surprised if there are some players who prefer not having access to delta V numbers, as it forces them to do things the intuitive trial-and-error way - which may be more fun for some people. (4) There are excellent mods which provides various functionality that you are requesting.

At this point, I don't expect them to listen. With this thread I want to hear what other players think of these problems, nothing more. This isn't a "suggestions" section. Also, I don't say that the stuff I wrote are "ideas", and they're certainly not new. I've been playing and reading this forum for the past 1.5 years.

[Brapness]

1: A valid point, it would be nice to be able to have a stock system like that, but I certainly don't think it's that essential to how I play. I started out not knowing what delta-v was, found out and did use kerbal engineer for a while, then stopped because I didn't really care about it.

2: I'm with error on this one. Yes it may be more rewarding if you get through the atmosphere safe, it would also be far more infuriating if for the 3rd time your Mun lander burned up because you hadn't quite mastered your descent profile. Perhaps another thing that might be nice as a choice.

3: I have no problem with the tech tree, I like starting out small and working my way up in terms of capability. It adds progression to the game, rather than enabling you to make your first mission an Eeloo base.

4: I would like more science equipment like cameras and smaller stuff for probes. I think given the planned money and reputation system, it's more than reasonable to assume probes are going to become very useful. They're cheaper, easier to send far away and don't carry the same risk. Oh and the Biome argument about EVAs, if that annoys you or you don't enjoy doing it, then don't do it. You are your own master. You are not bound by any rules to do things the most efficient way. In my career file I haven't got half of Kerbin's Biome reports, but I have got science from every object except Eeloo.

5: There's no roadmap as such but there are planned features. Squad has always, quite wisely, not promised anything on a preset timescale because it's a promise they can't keep. I have to say I prefer squad's system to being told a date and then being told they can't make it.

6: While in game features are of course the core of gameplay, Mods give you the ability to make this game exactly what you want it to be, and it gives everyone else that ability too. It widens the audience by making it possible for everyone to get what they want. So in the case of additional features like deadly re-entry and life-support, I'm happy to use mods.

So I suppose in summation...

I disagree

I think KSP is one of the most amazing games of all time, I think it's vastly improved from where it started, and I think we're still a long way off from v1.0

Seconded.

Edited February 7, 2014 by Brapness

[Daid]

1. Agree. Kerbal Engineer is the first thing I install.

2. Having played with deadly re-entry. I do not think it made much of a difference for me.

3. The tech tree is natural progression trough the game. It makes total sense design wise.

4. Probes are also lighter, costing less fuel. I use them more then kerbals, maybe your missions are not advanced enough to see the advantages.

5. Nothing to do with design of the game. And a good thing. Stuff on roapmaps get changed quite often, and silly forum riots would be ensured with a public roadmap. Just look back at the devlogs and see the stuff they talked about they might do and scrapped. (OMG, still no resource mining, gas-giants and various other stuff!)

6. They hired some of the top mod developers, rendering your argument pretty much useless. Also, nothing to do with design of the game.

[jalapen0]

The only questionable design decisions I have found in ksp are my rockets.

[MrZayas1]

You know what, I hate people like you who only complain in your lives, but just remember ITS A WORK IN PROGRESS. My phrase is, if you can't make the game yourself, then don't tell other people to hurry up cuz you don't know what goes into the game. Stop demanding things that have been thought of already, just get Deadly Reentry and MechJeb.

[macegee]

2: I'm with error on this one. Yes it may be more rewarding if you get through the atmosphere safe, it would also be far more infuriating if for the 3rd time your Mun lander burned up because you hadn't quite mastered your descent profile. Perhaps another thing that might be nice as a choice.

3: I have no problem with the tech tree, I like starting out small and working my way up in terms of capability. It adds progression to the game, rather than enabling you to make your first mission an Eeloo base.

4: I would like more science equipment like cameras and smaller stuff for probes. I think given the planned money and reputation system, it's more than reasonable to assume probes are going to become very useful. They're cheaper, easier to send far away and don't carry the same risk. Oh and the Biome argument about EVAs, if that annoys you or you don't enjoy doing it, then don't do it. You are your own master. You are not bound by any rules to do things the most efficient way. In my career file I haven't got half of Kerbin's Biome reports, but I have got science from every object except Eeloo.

5: There's no roadmap as such but there are planned features. Squad has always, quite wisely, not promised anything on a preset timescale because it's a promise they can't keep. I have to say I prefer squad's system to being told a date and then being told they can't make it.

6: While in game features are of course the core of gameplay, Mods give you the ability to make this game exactly what you want it to be, and it gives everyone else that ability too. It widens the audience by making it possible for everyone to get what they want. So in the case of additional features like deadly re-entry and life-support, I'm happy to use mods.

So I suppose in summation...

I disagree

2. But how is it different from mastering everything else? There's rocket building, ascent, orbital maneuvers, rendezvous, docking, landing. It's just another essential part of rocketry.

3. As I said before, it is made to introduce you to the parts, having tutorial logic in mind. If it was made with more "tycoon" in mind, it would be structured differently allowing you more control over it. Say, giving you a choice of selecting either manned or unmanned routes from the start, or having a separate "scientific equipment" branch, etc. Do you get what I mean?

4. Yes, of course, you can choose not to do EVA reports. But how do I choose to get more science with probes? That's the point, without more probe-sized things and science score (values) rebalance, I can't.

5. Planned features are vague, and mostly come 2-3 months before the update. And I personally have never asked for release dates.

6. I use mods too, and I'm grateful to the modders very much, and I hope there will be even more quality mods out there after 1.0. They're my only hope, actually. What I don't like is the before mentioned attitude.

Edited February 7, 2014 by macegee

[macegee]

You know what, I hate people like you who only complain in your lives, but just remember ITS A WORK IN PROGRESS. My phrase is, if you can't make the game yourself, then don't tell other people to hurry up cuz you don't know what goes into the game. Stop demanding things that have been thought of already, just get Deadly Reentry and MechJeb.

Note: I won't be replying to such posts where people don't really read what I'm trying to say.

[Max Grant]

I saw this post and reminisced upon many of my own questionable design decisions.

[DeepSpaceDutch]

And I personally have never asked for release dates.

You make it sound as if SQUAD should really pay attention to your personal needs and desires. Well, luckily, they don't.

What I don't like is the before mentioned attitude.

Ooohh the irony....

[BlackBicycle]

Most of the time, I try to voice my concerns to the devs directly, but I’ve realized that they don’t really listen....What do you think?

I think that no amount of discussion here is going to do squat about your concerns. Invent some other way for the developers to listen to you. Maybe take hostages. Or declare a hunger strike.

[macegee]

1. Agree. Kerbal Engineer is the first thing I install.

2. Having played with deadly re-entry. I do not think it made much of a difference for me.

3. The tech tree is natural progression trough the game. It makes total sense design wise.

4. Probes are also lighter, costing less fuel. I use them more then kerbals, maybe your missions are not advanced enough to see the advantages.

5. Nothing to do with design of the game. And a good thing. Stuff on roapmaps get changed quite often, and silly forum riots would be ensured with a public roadmap. Just look back at the devlogs and see the stuff they talked about they might do and scrapped. (OMG, still no resource mining, gas-giants and various other stuff!)

6. They hired some of the top mod developers, rendering your argument pretty much useless. Also, nothing to do with design of the game.

2. Actually, when I first played with Deadly Reentry, I felt the same. It didn't make much difference. BUT when I played for the second time with it, with Career mode, it made a lot more sense to me. In order to get more science, you have to bring the stuff back to Kerbin. So now I consider Deadly Reentry as another must-have mod. It includes damage from excessive G-force also, so it goes even one more step further.

Not to mention that few more ways to explode and die in this game is always a good idea.

4. You're right, probes are lighter. But that doesn't get us probe-sized experiment parts and other means to do science with them.

6. They didn't hire them to integrate their mod features into the base game, but even then, that's not what I was talking about. I'm saying that we're being told "stop asking, use mods" too much.

I think that no amount of discussion here is going to do squat about your concerns. Invent some other way for the developers to listen to you. Maybe take hostages. Or declare a hunger strike.

Yet again, I don't need devs to read any of this, they did read such threads tons of times. I'm here to find out how many of you feel the same about the decisions they make.

Edited February 7, 2014 by macegee

[BlackBicycle]

I'm HERE to find out how many of you feel the same about the decisions they make.

I see. Very well then.

[EvilotionCR2]

And also,we aren't even in quarter of development after 3 years.

[Jouni]

1. In the final game, I would like to see much more extensive tools for mission planning than any of the mods currently provides. For example, if I want to go to Eeloo, I would like the game to show me the next reasonable transfer windows, which may or may not involve gravity assist at some other planet. After all, hiring somebody to do that kind of planning would be ridiculously cheap, when compared to building even a small rocket.

2. Maybe the final game could have two modes. In silly mode, you could still build those obviously unrealistic designs many people enjoy, while normal mode would aim for more realism.

3. The tech tree as it currently is can be a bit arbitrary, but it'll probably get better over time. Eventually I would like to be able to say the R&D department things like "I want bigger rockets", "I want more efficient engines", or "I want lightweight parts", and the engineers would later come up with parts that fit the description.

4. Career mode is still a new concept, so it'll probably take a few more releases to get properly balanced. One way to make probes more useful would be to give 100% science from transmitting sensor data, while allowing the sensors to operate and transmit continuously. This way a small probe could gather a reasonable amount of science from a quick flyby, while manned missions would have to be much bigger and more complex to be able to return.

[Monger]

1. lack of Delta-v indicator

What exactly do you mean by this? The amount of Delta-V your ship still has? Because adding up the few navigation point Delta-Vs to know the total amount you need is not that complicated. If it is the first one: a beginner won't need it. And for an expert it's just a good estimate, because obviously your real Delta-V depends on your pilot skills as well (i.e. when to accelerate, seperate stages, optimize your route etc.). If you really want to crunch the numbers, feel free to calculate it for yourself. But it is necessary to understand and play the game. This is not a NASA simulator, this game is supposed to be fun even when just calculating via rule-of-thumb.

2. Lack of reentry heat

Agree, but this is also something which needs to be balanced carefully. I can imagine why they didn't include it yet, because they would need to change it with every single release again.

3. Tech tree as a mean to introduce parts to the new players

This is not that uncommon. Actually, many tycoon-like games only have a campaign to prepare for the multiplayer and "skirmish" matches. 2070 A.D. is a good example for that.

KSP is in its core still a sandbox game, and I consider that a good thing.

4. Manned flights give too much advantages over the use of unmanned probes

Agreed, but I consider that a bug due to the half-baked science point system. Be patient, the Science system is still young.

5. No public roadmap.

There is no public roadmap, because there is no internal roadmap. And this is actually not bad. Not many studios follow a (more or less) agile development process, but many of them plan and implement features that turn out as really bad ideas. It is necessary to have a design vision, but I think this one is clear enough. How you get there specifically should always be up for change. SQUAD clearly stated what they have in mind, but it's perfectly okay to not put it in any particular order.

On the other hand, which annoys me a bit are the quite long update cycles. If they really want to go agile, they should make smaller steps, but more often. KSP could and should probably progress faster. But then again, Squad improved a lot in the last few years, releases are much smoother then than back in the days.

6. “There’s a mod for it, stop asking for it†attitude

Yeah, talking about attitude...

I think the mods are one of the biggest strengths and also biggest weaknesses of KSP. KSP is not powerful enough to be considered a framework (like e.g. Project Spark), so players assume that the full game should be considered complete without mods. On the other hand, mods water down the original design vision. Players start to assume that mod X or Y should be part of the full game, although the developers never intended that kind of game.

Long story short: my guess is, you want KSP to be something which it isn't, and you are frustrated that the developers are not following your vision. But this is your problem, not theirs, because SQUAD made their vision quite clear since the beginning, although not in detail.

[macegee]

And also,we aren't even in quarter of development after 3 years.

You're wrong. According to devs, KSP is gonna be "scope-complete" within this year, by the end of it. With 2-3 months for each update, it's gonna be ~4 updates before the "scope-complete". The way I understand it, "scope-complete" is gonna be "feature complete for 1.0".

[Starwhip]

And just think, even after 1.0 is released, are they going to stop? Probably no. If anyone here has played Minecraft recently, you'd know that it was officially released several years ago, and still new things are being implemented. ATM, it's at 1.7.4, and counting.

[Brapness]

2. But how is it different from mastering everything else? There's rocket building, ascent, orbital maneuvers, rendezvous, docking, landing. It's just another essential part of rocketry.

3. As I said before, it is made to introduce you to the parts, having tutorial logic in mind. If it was made with more "tycoon" in mind, it would be structured differently allowing you more control over it. Say, giving you a choice of selecting either manned or unmanned routes from the start, or having a separate "scientific equipment" branch, etc. Do you get what I mean?

4. Yes, of course, you can choose not to do EVA reports. But how do I choose to get more science with probes? That's the point, without more probe-sized things and science score (values) rebalance, I can't.

5. Planned features are vague, and mostly come 2-3 months before the update. And I personally have never asked for release dates.

6. I use mods too, and I'm grateful to the modders very much, and I hope there will be even more quality mods out there after 1.0. They're my only hope, actually. What I don't like is the before mentioned attitude.

2. You are right, but I don't think it's necessary for the core game. I can see it being a real bore for beginners and perhaps a bit tedious for old dogs, so as I stated I'm happy to use a mod instead.

3. The only problem I presently have with the tech tree is the positioning of probe cores, and perhaps things are a little under-priced at the start. Beyond that I don't really see the 'tutorial' logic in the tree's design. It is branched in a manner of speaking. Unlocking a rocketry node unlocks the next one, as does aerodynamics, electronics etc. In my mind a 'tutorial' tree would just be one straight line.

4. In my career mode save I've transmitted home quite a lot of science from probes only using the small science parts. Yes a manned mission would have returned more, but I lacked the tech to make that a reality, whereas sending a 1 tonne probe was simple. I'd say prior to my last two big manned missions to Duna and Gilly, transmitted data was responsible for about half my science points.

6. I would be annoyed at that attitude if it was directed towards things like contracts or research or docking, because those are core features, but as I said for add-ons like deadly re-entry and life support I have no problem with it.

[Clockwork_werewolf]

I started writing this before there were any reply's so I apologize if I reiterate something someone else said. I took so long because I had to go and watch the video to know what kind of argument was being made. Also this is not intended as a personal attack but I'm sure by the end it may seem like one.

1. I like the fact I have no delta-V indicator. I know what it means, I knew what it meant after about a week playing (steam says I'm at 695 hours now). I like that fact that it is not indicated otherwise I'm not sure why I would need to redesign a ship (apart from structural failure on liftoff). I like the skill of having to judge by eye my delta-v and Thrust to weight ratio of each stage. I makes getting terminal velocity right harder. I would like a total mass readout though. If it is available in map view why not in build view?

2. Yea might be nice.

3. I think the first few stages of the tech tree can be used in this way without impacting the difficulty of the carrier mode.

4. Manned flight is heaver than unmanned and this is without life support. There has to be a reason to take Kerbals out there. Until the carrier mode I had no reason to send a Kerbal to any of the planets, so I didn't. The manned only science gave me a reason to make more variety of crafts and types of mission.

5. Game development never happens the way people think it does, the best games in the world are not how they were planned to be. You start with a good plan and then change it to be more fun as things go on and you see how things pan out. If they gave you a road map then the game would either be exactly like it and not so fun as it could be or fun but different from the given road map. I personally have supported a lot of early access games from early minecarft (indev that was before infdev that was before alpha that was before beta that was before the release) to Starbound to Minerwars to the dead linger. Some off these games KSP especially are very good games. Some like the dead linger are unplayablely bad. The differences between good and bad early access games basically boil down to three things.

A: Bugs. Crashes every twenty minutes, items disappearing, invisible monsters (that are meant to be visible) you get the idea (by the way all these and MORE can be found in "the dead linger" lets just call it TDL from now on).

B: Not enough content. This is when a game just hasn't had enough ideas or items added to it to make game-play fun after an hour or two. This also counts when a game has many items that are basically just the same and so add nothing to game-play (TDL has 30 types of melee weapons but there is no game-play difference between them so they don't matter).

C: Just not being fun: TDL does exactly the type of game-play they say they will. It is a zombie survival shooter. They say what will be added and do it. It is not fun. after playing it I can tell them what they NEED to do to make it more fun but they are sticking to their road plan.

Yes I have watched the TotalBiscuit video and I agree with some of the things he said. He doesn't like playing early access games so that is a difference to begin with. He also was talking about quality control when it comes to steam this was linked in his talk to road maps but actually I do not agree that they are the best way to know if a game will be good because I do not think there is a way to know the future.

I have played enough early access game to know a road map is not what I want. I want a fun game. These are not the same things.

6. I'm not sure where I stand on this. On one hand I would like to see features from some mods in the vanilla game (some reentry heat, some life support, some more parts) but on the other I don't want all the mods implemented into the game-play. I do not use mechjeb and I would get board if I didn't even have to fly my own flights. I understand kethane but I personally don't want it. FAR is good sometimes but it slows down computers and although I can run it some peoples computers right now struggle with 100 parts in a non modded game. Which mods do you add and which not? Second do I want the developers spending their time replicating someone else's work? do I want a three month update to be mostly spent on adding something already available in a mod? yes it might run better, not crash and be forward compatible but while there are people making mods this isn't want I want the Devs to work on.

Also how could the Devs create a road-map AND add mods to the gameplay? Every new mod taken up by enough people would have to be added to the road-map making it pointless.

It saddens me to say that the devs made me don’t care about what they do anymore, because of lots of their questionable (and wrong) actions.

I think this is the biggest problem with early access, not that the DEV's have done anything wrong but that, because it is not a finished project people get the idea that they have somehow diverged from some perfect game. There is no such thing as a perfect game. At no point have I expected the Dev's to follow my ideas of how the game should be developed, at no point have I expected the game to be 100% want I want. All I expect is for the game to be fun and updated, the updates are up to them.

I'm sure you are not the only person thinking this and I'm also sure this will start a new flame war. I'm just not sure why you are trying to control a successful game. If you want to change something then make a mod. You are welcome to but don't try and change my game without asking me and all the other people who play it (including NASA apparently). I have given my money to the Dev and this is what gives them the right to choose its path for right or wrong.