[Discussion] Questionable design decisions

[crazyewok]

1. If you quote someone and delete part of their statement please put a "-snip-" in there to indicate you did so, otherwise people will think that was the entire statement.

2. Only very recently did you suggest how they should determine what features what to put in after you were told many times why they shouldn't add them in.

3. As PDCWolf said.

4. Just because the community wants it doesn't mean in anyway that it is the correct course of action.

5. Terms Of Service

1) Suggestion forum so I cansay what I want. Up to squad if they add it. But Iv but my opinions down and see no reason why a game survey wouldnt be a good idea nor a well implimented option system.

Squad dont like those ideas? Ok fine it there game and I will just refraind from buying any future content from them.

[crazyewok]

this sums it up

And just because you say something doesnt make it right or the corrcet opinion, nor do you speak for squad or anyone but yourself like me.

[Dodgey]

You can suggest anything you want. It to suggest something that doesn't have a good enough reason why is a fallacy. A delta v indicator was suggested, it was told why not. (I don't think I need to provide examples why). Just because you didn't like the outcome does not mean that it was the wrong outcome. Sure you can call them stupid, doesn't mean that you have reason to. It is the same process as the scientific method, all theorys must be able to stand even when tried to be proven wrong

[macegee]

And we're back. I did some changes to the OP. Please continue by expressing your thoughts on the subject of design decisions in question. We've heard quite a bit of good statements so far.

[Red Iron Crown]

I think delta-v and TWR should be part of the construction process, they are the values at the core of rocket design. There is enough trial and error in making a rocket stay in one piece and not blow up without having to guess whether a craft is even capable of the mission planned for it.

[Jouni]

Delta-v and TWR calculation is actually quite hard to do correctly. The situation is similar to staging. Sometimes the game is able to guess the correct staging when you build a new rocket, but more often than not you have to adjust it manually. Similarly, MechJeb can estimate delta-v and TWR for ships with simple staging, but more complicated designs usually just confuse it. For more accurate estimates, you need to be able to tell the game how you are going to use the ship, which comes quite close to full mission planning software.

This discussion reminds me of when I played VGA Planets in the 1990s. Eventually the addons became so advanced that you essentially played the game with third-party software, and used the main game mostly for handling the turn files.

[Rowsdower]

Things were on the verge of getting bad again a few pages back, but I'm glad things are on track again. As a reminder, speaking your mind is fine, but please be respectful towards other people on this forum and those at Squad.

[TheCanadianVendingMachine]

With the Delta-V indicator, that makes the game less fun. I hate this game right now, because it's boring and no fun. If I had a Delta-V indicator, I would stop playing. Just knowing that you will have enough fuel won't make things better, it will make them boring!

[Serratus]

I must say - with all due respect for SQUAD - that OP has a point. I too feel like Devs don't really listen to much to the community, as much as they have their own idea of what should and shouldn't be in the game. Whatever we say is merely noise. Now TBH some of that feeling may be purely because KSP is moving away from my personal view of what it "should" be, and many ppl might have an opposite view because Devs happened to do exactly what they wanted to see. Still, I sher OP's feeling that now I'm no longer excited about new updates, just waiting for full version so mods (that should be base game features IMO) stop breaking...

[Dodgey]

I must say - with all due respect for SQUAD - that OP has a point. I too feel like Devs don't really listen to much to the community, as much as they have their own idea of what should and shouldn't be in the game. Whatever we say is merely noise. Now TBH some of that feeling may be purely because KSP is moving away from my personal view of what it "should" be, and many ppl might have an opposite view because Devs happened to do exactly what they wanted to see. Still, I sher OP's feeling that now I'm no longer excited about new updates, just waiting for full version so mods (that should be base game features IMO) stop breaking...

To say that Squad doesn't listen to the community because they don't add in something that they don't believe is with the spirit with the game is just plain wrong, multiplayer is a prime example of them listening to the community. As was stated earlyer on in this thread the view that KSP has a fly by the seat of your pants nature and that a Delta V indicator would take away from this is an opinion shared by a large portion of the community and the devlopers.

Saying that reentry heat won't be added into the game untill final release is just illogical as far as I can see. To implement it in a way similar to the Deadly Reentry mod out there would be a major change to game mechanics and final release would just be too late for it to be implemented. While I havent heard any official word on the matter of reentry heat I do believe that it is a fair deduction and would also impact on the "wacky" nature of the game.

With regards to the last part about mods to points.

1. Mods allow the player to customize the game past what the devlopers think the game should be, not everybody plays with the same mods, so it begs the question what mods should be added into the game. If like Crazyewok you say that people can just turn off those features then at what point does Squad stop adding optional suggested features and work on the core game, because the argument of "If you don't like it, don't play with it" can be applied to any and all features one would suggest.

2. As with Minecraft I strongly believe that the 1.0 release of KSP will not deam the end of the development cycle and that the devlopers will continue to devloper KSP in one way or enouther untill we are long dead.

[TheOrqwithVagrant]

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?

Agree wholeheartedly with this one, and I consider the point about the inconsistency of having dV readouts on maneuver nodes but nowhere else to be particularly telling - it's almost as if the devs "indecisiveness" about dV planning is reflected in the game by having this fragment of "dV awareness" left in, but no real way inside the game to use the information effectively.

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.

Agree that reentry heat should be in, though I could have sworn last I heard a dev say anything on the matter, the word was that it was coming at some point, but not high on the priority list. I think it should probably best be implemented after the current aerodynamic model is replaced with something better. Either way, the current situation feels like there's an "infinite aerobreaking" checkbox on the "debug" menu which we cannot uncheck; to me, it feels no less "cheaty" to me than infinite fuel or unbreakable joints. Not having it removes a whole class of spectacular failures...for those who are into that kind of thing.

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.

I don't think we need to worry too much about the current tech tree, and its "tutorialness" - I would expect this to change dramatically. One thing that I actually haven't seen mentioned in the many alternative tech-tree threads is the impact on part cost and budgets for balancing. There will be a major difference in how the whole tree has to work, once all parts from a node are not automatically available when the node is unlocked.

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.

Again, I see no reason yet to worry that the devs are making questionable decisions on this point; tech tree and career mode progression are in early days still. Introduction of money, contracts, budget and reputation mechanics will introduce plenty of ways to balance risk/rewards with probe .vs crewed missions.

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.

Disagree with you on this one. Publishing a roadmap would just end up "locking" squad into directions they may end up not wanting to follow. Sadly, people just cannot seem to read these things correctly, and tend to translate "we're playing with the idea of" to "THIS FEATURE WAS PROMISED" no matter how many disclaimers are included. Squad should maintain as much flexibility as possible, with as little grief as possible, and I believe even tentative roadmaps would cause unnecessary flame wars.

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.

I agree with the statement that "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.", but I don't think it's fair of you to direct this criticism at Squad. Though it is frequently used by people who for some reason have an urge to "squash" opinion or suggestion threads, I don't remember ever seeing this purported "attitude" expressed the devs, just a small portion of the forum-frequenting fanbase.

[nholzric]

You still can do aerobraking with Deadly Reentry. You don't even need heat shields if you do it the smart way, in the upper atmosphere. Doing an aerocapture (making your orbit stable in one go with the help of atmosphere after coming in from another SOI) is still possible with reentry heat enabled. You just need to plan for it, using heat shields. I think it's a good trade-off - if you want to do aerocapture, you need an additional stuff for it to work.

macegee, so we disagree about adding damaging reentry heat to stock. Honestly, part of the reason I want it left out is to protect my style of play and I know that's a dumb way to advocate for different features. But I also think that ridiculous reentries without any sort of obvious protection (like a heat shield) fits with the style of the game. You know how half the parts are "found by the side of the road" and rockets are often all wobbly (though I hear that's getting "fixed"). I think ridiculous, unrealistic, unprotected reentries are "Very Kerbal". I am wondering what your response to that is? One extreme is "forget it, this is a rocket sim, it must be realistic no matter what", you seem to be saying "you can still do it, you just need heat shields or whatever". I'd enjoy reading if you elaborated a little.

[macegee]

Delta-v and TWR calculation is actually quite hard to do correctly. The situation is similar to staging. Sometimes the game is able to guess the correct staging when you build a new rocket, but more often than not you have to adjust it manually. Similarly, MechJeb can estimate delta-v and TWR for ships with simple staging, but more complicated designs usually just confuse it. For more accurate estimates, you need to be able to tell the game how you are going to use the ship, which comes quite close to full mission planning software.

Like you've said yourself, staging frequently gets things wrong. Maneuver node burn time - same thing, the way it works is very far from ideal. But since there's a need in such system, some solution must be found. And it was found by the developers in those cases. So as by the developers of MechJeb and Kerbal Engineer, and other modders on various other cases. Also, I'd like to quote Harvester:

That's something that needs to be always clear... we never do or not do something because of a technical limitation... our decisions are for gameplay/development progression reasons. If we wanted to add more planets right now, we'd work through any tech issues we find along the way

So there's no need touch the technical side of the subject.

With the Delta-V indicator, that makes the game less fun. I hate this game right now, because it's boring and no fun. If I had a Delta-V indicator, I would stop playing. Just knowing that you will have enough fuel won't make things better, it will make them boring!

For one, that's a bit too extreme. Second, I've been playing this game for more than 1.5 years, and still love it. I've been to Eve just yesterday. If it's not fun for you at this point, well.. Does it have anything to do with game itself? Tell us. This is exactly why we're here.

Saying that reentry heat won't be added into the game untill final release is just illogical as far as I can see. To implement it in a way similar to the Deadly Reentry mod out there would be a major change to game mechanics and final release would just be too late for it to be implemented. While I havent heard any official word on the matter of reentry heat I do believe that it is a fair deduction and would also impact on the "wacky" nature of the game.

Sorry, what?

Agree wholeheartedly with this one, and I consider the point about the inconsistency of having dV readouts on maneuver nodes but nowhere else to be particularly telling - it's almost as if the devs "indecisiveness" about dV planning is reflected in the game by having this fragment of "dV awareness" left in, but no real way inside the game to use the information effectively.

Yep, exactly my point.

Disagree with you on this one. Publishing a roadmap would just end up "locking" squad into directions they may end up not wanting to follow. Sadly, people just cannot seem to read these things correctly, and tend to translate "we're playing with the idea of" to "THIS FEATURE WAS PROMISED" no matter how many disclaimers are included. Squad should maintain as much flexibility as possible, with as little grief as possible, and I believe even tentative roadmaps would cause unnecessary flame wars.

They still got terms of service, that's been quoted here at least two times, I think. Saying that certain features are 100% planned and some others are considered to be implemented is okay, as I see it. Latter means that it's still in the plan, and if there would be time to make them, and if they'd turn fun enough after being in the prototype. And people would have right to criticize either of such decisions. It's fair. Again, it opens up a dialog. Even between us, players.

Actually, there's more to this question. There's already so many mods that there's no need to prototype much of anything to see how would it work. It's probably has been done already by someone, and you can see how it works by looking at the mods themselves and player feedback on them. That simplifies things even more.

I agree with the statement that "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.", but I don't think it's fair of you to direct this criticism at Squad. Though it is frequently used by people who for some reason have an urge to "squash" opinion or suggestion threads, I don't remember ever seeing this purported "attitude" expressed the devs, just a small portion of the forum-frequenting fanbase.

As I've said in the OP, of course, they won't ever say it to our face. And, you're right, community itself is filled with such an attitude. But look at this exact forum section. "Already suggested list" topic, for example. For one, it's not official topic, made by an ordinary user. Which is really convenient, since SQUAD don't post this type of things. But still, it's there, and it's filled with links to the mods. That makes me feel like I'm being treated the way I said I feel.

macegee, so we disagree about adding damaging reentry heat to stock. Honestly, part of the reason I want it left out is to protect my style of play and I know that's a dumb way to advocate for different features. But I also think that ridiculous reentries without any sort of obvious protection (like a heat shield) fits with the style of the game. You know how half the parts are "found by the side of the road" and rockets are often all wobbly (though I hear that's getting "fixed"). I think ridiculous, unrealistic, unprotected reentries are "Very Kerbal". I am wondering what your response to that is? One extreme is "forget it, this is a rocket sim, it must be realistic no matter what", you seem to be saying "you can still do it, you just need heat shields or whatever". I'd enjoy reading if you elaborated a little.

I'm actually glad that you've brought this up. It made me think. For one, explosions that reentry heat and g-forces provide you are also "Very Kerbal". Second, docking also requires you to somewhat limit your designs and attach additional parts to your craft. RCS affects your craft designs even more, since you not only have to take RCS fuel with you, you also have to balance your craft and placement of RCS thrusters in a way that when you use them it won't shake your ship the way you don't need it to. So yeah, I think the requirement to use heat shields when they're needed is fair.

Edited February 9, 2014 by macegee

[Dodgey]

To explain my point Macegee as I see it deadly is a pretty significant game mechanic. One that is considered to be a hardcore and realistic mechanic. Surely you must agree that deadly reentry is a significantly more in depth and significant feature than a simple delta v indicator is.

[Dodgey]

By that I mean in my opinion it would be too late at 1.0 to change a core mechanic, which I don't think you can deny deadly reentry would be, and probably too late now as well.

[macegee]

Saying that reentry heat won't be added into the game untill final release is just illogical as far as I can see.

Probably, you got the idea wrong. What I was saying is that It's not gonna make it into 1.0. Not that it will be made somewhere around the release date.

[Dodgey]

So you are saying that it won't make it into the game at all? Just to clear up ambiguity.

[macegee]

So you are saying that it won't make it into the game at all? Just to clear up ambiguity.

The way I see things are going? No, I don't think it will. So far, it doesn't look that it's gonna happen, even after 1.0. But I'd be glad to be proven wrong, though.

[palker]

Well i think you are correct at all points. I would also like if they could be bothered with proper aerodynamics. I mean their are doing educational version and they are going to distribute it with their BS aerodynamic model! I mean WTF? FAR is the best mod most important mod that should be stock and i would not play without it.

[DannySwish]

I wouldn't mind if there were two modes, a "Developer-Intended Play" mode and a "Realism" mode. This would relate to the logic of the tech tree, what knowledge would be available of the planets, re-entry, and everything else.

[Dodgey]

Ok. I see what you are saying

[Justin Kerbice]

macegee : good points.

I think devs seems to have left the community (non up to date docs, inconplete docs, no more posts from them AFAIK, lack of tools update like the part-tools 0.23 which doesn't contains unity package).

Looks like the "Kraken" turn to a blackhole and catch them :/.

This game is just amazing but it's not yet completed and needs improvments and fixes, we need you Squad !

[macegee]

Well i think you are correct at all points. I would also like if they could be bothered with proper aerodynamics. I mean their are doing educational version and they are going to distribute it with their BS aerodynamic model! I mean WTF? FAR is the best mod most important mod that should be stock and i would not play without it.

I wouldn't mind if there were two modes, a "Developer-Intended Play" mode and a "Realism" mode. This would relate to the logic of the tech tree, what knowledge would be available of the planets, re-entry, and everything else.

I think you guys are actually missing my point here. Advanced reentry and consequential G-force damage mechanics (that are represented by Deadly Reentry mod) are great not because they're "realistic", but because it's a solid piece of Player vs Environment game design. It creates a set of certain clear rules about how Environment affects player, and the player in his turn can react on it in a way he thinks is better for him. What are player's options? Doing aerobraking without use of heat shields in upper atmo, or using them to get deeper and being able to aerocapture, use smaller landers with smaller shields, or using larger ones with inflatable shields, use his old space station as a disposable heat shield, or just go watch explosions on your way back home. Basically, it's awesome because it expands the gameplay in-depth, not because it makes the game realistic. And, actually, the way Deadly Reentry works isn't realistic too much as you might think. Wanna know what's actually "realistic"? http://youtu.be/aW5ozq4Tqew

macegee : good points.

I think devs seems to have left the community (non up to date docs, inconplete docs, no more posts from them AFAIK, lack of tools update like the part-tools 0.23 which doesn't contains unity package).

Looks like the "Kraken" turn to a blackhole and catch them :/.

This game is just amazing but it's not yet completed and needs improvments and fixes, we need you Squad !

You're actually wrong about them leaving the community. They post stuff about development quite frequently. Dunno much about documents and part tools, I'm not a mod maker.

[Dodgey]

I wouldn't mind if there were two modes, a "Developer-Intended Play" mode and a "Realism" mode. This would relate to the logic of the tech tree, what knowledge would be available of the planets, re-entry, and everything else.

You do realize that would entail devloping essentially two seperate games at the same time right?

Edited February 9, 2014 by Dodgey

[Rusty6899]

1. Personally, I enjoy the challenge of designing by ships by myself. I appreciate that some players don't want to do this as it is quite time consuming or because they prefer flying crafts to building them. The problem is that I think KSP, as well as being a game, is a learning tool. I like the way that you need to learn and discover more about astrophysics to become better at the game, and I think that some of that would be lost if it gave you all the vital statistics in the stock game.

2. Can't really comment. I haven't played with any mods so I haven't seen the benefits of re-entry heat to the game. I think it could work, but I can' honestly say I think it's vital.

3. ...

4. Probes should be best for exploring and retrieving data, without argument. Manned craft should have their own benefits *cough* mining *cough*, but they don't at the moment. I don't agree with reducing the effectiveness of probes to account for this (this assumes probes can be one-way missions and Kerbals are expected to return - a point that the OP didn't bring up, and isn't demanded by the game, but is still worth mentioning).

5. I can see why the developers don't want to make too many promises. They are doing a good job as it is, so I'm happy to let them continue as they want.

6. Firstly, people are playing a game with seemingly endless potential and opportunity for innovation, and every single one of them has a slightly different view of how the final game should look. The stock game cannot satiate all of them, and so mods are used to provide the developments on the gameplay experience that certain people want. If the devs don't want to implement an idea, but there are a reasonable portion of the players that want it, then a mod will most likely be made for it. If they do like an idea, then it may end up in 1.0.