What direction do you want KSP to take.

[Comrade Jenkens]

I've noticed a noticeable split in the forums about peoples preferred art styles and how complex they want KSP to be. Would you rather see KSP take a more realism based route with things such as parts matching real life spacecraft and complex systems such as life support or do you prefer a more cartoony art style and relatively easy to pick up mechanics?

Personally I like the stock art style though maybe a bit of detail needs adding along with unifying their looks more. Also though I'd be happy with things such as re-entry heat and aerodynamics I'd like to see them kept quite simple so newer players can still pick them up fast.

[Tank Buddy]

I agree with most of what you have to say, but I don't want KSP to turn into an all-out Spaceflight simulator. After all, it is a game, and it should be fun for everyone, not just people who want it to be super realistic or super cartoony. I don't really have a preference, but I do trust that SQUAD will not disappoint us.

[boomerdog2000]

I agree with most of what you have to say, but I don't want KSP to turn into an all-out Spaceflight simulator. After all, it is a game, and it should be fun for everyone, not just people who want it to be super realistic or super cartoony. I don't really have a preference, but I do trust that SQUAD will not disappoint us.

Same here, a bit of realism is good because it can make the player relate to the game or add challenge, but too much generally makes it boring or too complex for all but a few.

[qromodynmc]

Lot of people plays this game because of fun factor. for example;Me, I love when my kerbals go to space and smile all the way,if there was no kerbal,I dont think my first moon landing would be exciting that much. Also Im no math genius,and I dont want to make tons of calculations when I play ksp.

Please dont be selfish,some wants simulation,some wants arcade, Ksp is just ok right now..

[metl]

Right now it has an excellent balance (not counting bugs and other parts which aren't completed.) Squad has hit that middle ground right where it needs to be and I imagine it will stay there. If it gets much more complicated, it will have too steep of a learning curve to appeal to a large number of players. Same with making it too cartoony and simplistic. It needs to remain light-hearted and fun while still being believable.

[Jouni]

I prefer KSP as a realistic space flight game with cartoony graphics.

The world is full of not-so-realistic space flight games (or at least it was in the 90s, when I played X-Wing, TIE Fighter, and similar things), so there is no point for KSP to go that direction. The main selling point of the game is a good deal of realism, after all.

Realism doesn't mean that you should simulate everything with as much detail as possible. It means that the things that work in the game should be similar to things that work in the real world. The art of designing realistic games is all about game mechanics that support this general goal, while being simple enough to make the game accessible and fun. Having just one kind of liquid fuel is a good example of this type of game mechanics, as is the 100% reliability of the parts.

Some particular things I would like to see:

• More realistic aerodynamics.
  
• Dangerous atmospheric entry.
  
• Much weaker turbojets.
  
• Limited life support for manned modules. On the other hand, this is not a resource management game, so there should be a way to handle life support at space stations without flying resupply missions.
  

[possum]

The way the game is going right now is where it needs to stay. The modding community is there for those who want more realism. But some things need to be added to the stock game like better aerodynamics.

[Liowen]

I think right in the middle is fine, however they could add in things like life support, dangerous reentry effects, and resource management and still be in the middle. If you add these items but make them selectable so the player decides what they want their play style to be and can increase the difficulty as they see fit. This has always been what I feel games lack is player choice in their own play style, it is either everything or nothing when deciding on difficulty (hard is just a harder version of normal and normal is just a harder version of easy but the systems are all the same). Rather than having a selector for easy, normal, and hard make it so you pick what challenges you want in your game, but you can add in more as you play f you want more of a challenge or less if you are having trouble. Just my 2 cents though.

[timsfitz]

I like it the way it is. I would like some basic reentry danger and some basic life support systems, but otherwise its great.

[Whackjob]

I don't think it should look realistic. For crying out loud, how many of the parts are coming from Jebediah's family junkyard? How many were found on the side of the road? One of the fuel tanks is a stolen above ground pool!

[Rakaydos]

I like it the way it is. I would like some basic reentry danger and some basic life support systems, but otherwise its great.

Perhaps an option screen, like where you choose Sandbox or Carear, you can check "deadly rentry" and "Life support" as options. If you dont want then, dont use them, if you want them, they're stock.

[rkman]

Opinions about where the middle is might differ.

[Othuyeg]

I believe the best way to go is to allow players more options. This game is purely based on missions designed by the player himself and those missions are determined by the available options.

This means - more options for tweakable game mechanics (turn on difficulty settings, such as life support etc.) and give the player more ways to solve problems (parts...)

For cosmetic things... I like the way it is now and it can be very very beautiful at times (sunrises, atmosphere, eclipses...)

[Juanfro]

I would like KSP to stay in balance between fun-simple and serious-complex. IF I had to add something to the mix it would be more depth and variety.

The bad thing about depending on mods to keep the game interesting is that they aren't supported by Squad and they can vanish after an update if nobody takes care of them.

Edited March 23, 2014 by Juanfro

[LethalDose]

Wow, is that poll loaded.

I'm not sure if there's really a "split" in the community. There does seem to be disagreement about mechanics (and some we're barely able to talk about), but the mechanics debated are rarely really about realism, they're about game play.

IMO, Game play is paramount, and I personally believe game play would be improved by inclusion of more complex game mechanics that allow more substantially greater game depth, including life support, re-entry damage, launch intervals, transmission ranges and ... other mechanics that seem to cause threads to be locked when mentioned. It's about trade-off, but I think the popularity of mods like remotech, TAC LS, and DER speak to the desire of [part of] the community to have more complexity in the game.

I think X-COM did a amazing job of allowing the player to tailor their experience by choosing the specific options they want to play with (I think they called it "Second wave"). The options were gated behind an achievement wall (accessible after beating the game on any difficulty) but there's no need for that in a game like this. Mods are important and fun, but a poor solution for game mechanics that should be core mechanics. Mods require on-going support from individual community members, and mod support must lag behind game development. Further, SQUAD doesn't provide an API, and, as far as I can tell, doesn't allow decompiling the code which makes the job more difficult.

And yes, the game is currently in alpha, but SQUAD is all over the place about what we can expect in the final "scope" of the game, which, again IMO, is a major cause for the disagreement in the community.

Gameplay and mechanics have nothing to do with the art style, though. The game's art style is fantastic where it is. It looks real enough to identify real-world analogs, but still fun.

Edit: Watched

as a refresher, and changed the term "complexity" to "depth". The game is already a mile deep. But we can go deeper. Edited March 23, 2014 by LethalDose

[Merinsan]

I think your poll is somewhat flawed. I like the cartoonish art, but I want realistic physics. I want a challenge in the gameplay, but I want comedic aspects if I fail, or even when I succeed.

[The Destroyer]

I don't want it to be cartooney and all easy and everything, challenge is fun!

But I don't want a spaceflight simulator, if you want that, 2010.

[problemecium]

I want continuing emphasis on exploration. Someday I hope to see more solar systems with more planets, possibly procedural.

[Jouni]

Making features optional doesn't really answer questions like this, because not all options are created equal. For example, if the default option is to have dangerous atmospheric entry, the developers are obviously going to put more effort to ensure that the game is enjoyable with it. Similarly, if safe entry is the default, then the game is going to be developed from that assumption.

The more options there are, the more significant the choice of defaults becomes. In games like XCOM and Civilization V, some combinations of options are ridiculously easy, some combinations are extremely hard, and some are basically unwinnable or even completely unplayable.

[JimmyAgent007]

I think your poll is somewhat flawed. I like the cartoonish art, but I want realistic physics. I want a challenge in the gameplay, but I want comedic aspects if I fail, or even when I succeed.

I agree, but things can be taken to far into realism. What id like is what they have for X-Com second wave, a bunch of options you can choose from to make things harder. Do you want life support or not? It lets you choose. So on and so forth. Same with tech tree, do you want the new player tree or the realistic tree or the unmanned first tree and any other variation. But i think they stated they dont want a 'difficulty' difference so im not sure something like that will make it in. Most likely we will just need mods to take care of the things we want the most.

[Temstar]

I think I saw a piece from C7 once on this, I would like KSP to tone down a bit on the whole "Kerbals are idiots and build rockets by bolting together bits of metal and fill them with rocket fuel" vibe. In my mind Kerbals are only marginally worse or even as good at engineering as mankind, evident by the existence of things like NTR and ion engines, RTGs and even an instrument that can measure gravitons. Sure they are not as safety conscious as us, but that coupled by their unbridled enthusiasm for space exploration is why they're all over their home star system and we are not.

[cantab]

Yeah, everyone's going to vote for "somewhere in the middle".

On the visuals, I don't think it needs to go hyper-realistic, not least because it's demanding enough on computers as it is. But equally, I wouldn't want Squad to start cel-shading everything and making it look like an episode of Looney Tunes. I think for parts to be somewhat simplified compared to their real-world analogues is about right.

On the gameplay, I feel there should be as few features as possible that are present and unrealistic. As it is, compared to many space games KSP is hard realism, the only major issue at present is the aerodynamics. However, there are features that while they might be "realistic", equally might be better left out. Random part failures, residual air drag in orbits (above the current atmosphere boundaries), and axial tilt on Kerbin would all be annoying for a lot of people, for example.

[RuBisCO]

There should be difficulty settings and expansion packs, so we can get it as cartoony or as realistic as we each want.

[ArmchairGravy]

If I wanted to play Orbiter, I'd play it. If I wanted cartoon I'd play Spore. KSP is in between these two extremes and has enough realism to get the point of "space travel is hard" while not bogging itself down in micromanage-itis.

[Accelerando]

realism seems to be defined for some as "static unfun nothing ever changes in it that ever makes it more interesting than bideo games"

i love realism. i love consistent mechanics and laws of physics that agree with reality. it's not unrealistic to assume that inconceivable-sounding changes can occur in the future, or in another universe where the laws of physics of physical constants are different. why can't ksp universe be another universe as has been repeatedly said by novasilisko? a universe where the physics realistically allow for bug-eyed little green men with little rockets blasting off a sub-pluto-size planet with 1g surface gravity...

personally i'd love to see the physical laws of ksp fleshed out and explored to their logical extremes, or else continuously remodeled and revamped until we get a universe that under current models can afford for the "unrealistic" elements we do see

Edited March 23, 2014 by Accelerando