[0.24.x] Stock ReBalance v1.4 | 11/09/14

[mdapol]

Balancing with cost *IS* giving parts a niche. Sometimes you want a better part but need to use the cheaper one because of cost concerns. That's a tradeoff. Like I said, it has no bearing now but wait until 0.24 when it will. Once you have really high tech engines and can afford the best you simply -won't- use cheaper lower tech parts. That's how it works in real life.

You seem to be thinking only in terms of the sandbox game in that you want all parts to be useful. The thing is, in career mode, some parts will be useful early on, and then become obsolete.

Cost and tech-level are absolutely consistent with your philosophy.

[stupid_chris]

Balancing with cost *IS* giving parts a niche. Sometimes you want a better part but need to use the cheaper one because of cost concerns. That's a tradeoff. Like I said, it has no bearing now but wait until 0.24 when it will. Once you have really high tech engines and can afford the best you simply -won't- use cheaper lower tech parts. That's how it works in real life.

You seem to be thinking only in terms of the sandbox game in that you want all parts to be useful. The thing is, in career mode, some parts will be useful early on, and then become obsolete.

Cost and tech-level are absolutely consistent with your philosophy.

Well then I respectfully disagree

[m4v]

We don't have the most remote clue about how cost will play out in .24, it could be a true limiting factor or a non issue just like science is now. Arguing before then is a waste of time.

Also, I hate parts having to become obsolete, what will they do? clutter my part list until I screw up and run out of money? meh, that kind of balancing is unimaginative and lazy. It would be far more interesting that parts always had an use, and that the tech tree besides of unlocking parts also had upgrades, like a material upgrade improving the mass ratio of all tanks, and stuff like that.

[Rakaydos]

Not to mention, the developers have been quoted as seeing Carear as simply a tuturial for sandbox- the tech limits encourage expirimentation with each part as you unlock them, and a per-launch budget limit would limit the ridiculus size of some monsters.

Balancing for carear makes no sence if it's intended as a sandboxy tuturial anyway.

[CaptRobau]

This recent article says otherwise: http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/12/27/kerbal-space-program-devs-hope-to-add-budgets-reputation-in-2014/

Career should be about dealing with limitations and making the best of a situation. Sandbox about doing whatever you want.

[ayana]

About the suggestion to reduce the power of the reaction wheels, if players are supposed to depend on RCS more it'd be good to raise the ISP of it. You'd still have to worry about fuel but not need to bring quite as much of it.

[Quiana]

About the suggestion to reduce the power of the reaction wheels, if players are supposed to depend on RCS more it'd be good to raise the ISP of it. You'd still have to worry about fuel but not need to bring quite as much of it.

It's a true point, but I find that balancing the RCS out correctly can significantly lower how much fuel you use. A handy tool for that is RCS Aid, which will present a diagram of any rotational force implied by your thrusters if they're off balance and how strong of one it is. Using it, I've managed to learn how to better balance my RCS units out and as a result usually only need to send half the fuel up I used to for those things. Sometimes a little bit of knowledge can go a long way.

[ayana]

I've gotten used to using RCS Build Aid myself, so I'm not really concerned about wasting a lot of RCS trying to manevuer somewhere. My thought was just to give a craft that relies on RCS a good deal more time until it needs to be refueled. Weaker reactions wheels wouldn't be quite as annoying then.

[m4v]

If you want to raise RCS's Isp so their fuel consumption is a non-issue then we might as well leave the reaction wheels alone.

[ayana]

If you want to raise RCS's Isp so their fuel consumption is a non-issue then we might as well leave the reaction wheels alone.

Less of an issue, not a non-issue. But it's just an idea. I should probably go look what kind of a impact it'd have.

[Dewar]

I started playing the game in .23 and have almost never used RCS. I only used it when I played around with some probes. On that note, increasing the ISP of RCS is a bad idea, I would end up abusing it if it was on par with regular fuel. As for balancing reaction wheels, I think if amazing Chris (love your mods can't say it) were to release a tweaked set, it should be included in an"optional" folder as seen with other mod releases. As most players have gotten used to using only reaction wheels to control their crafts, I think changing there values is probably a little too controversial to be included in the main mod.

Having said that, I am a proponent for a balanced set and would probably use them.

Btw, I live abroad and have stopped paying attention to the calendar as a result; you got me so bad with your real chutes prank, I ended up sending a rescue mission with stock parachutes because I was completely oblivious of the date.

Good fun.

touché

[curiousepic]

Anyone that has played Better Than Starting Manned knows how (drastically) reduced torque for reaction wheels and all command pods gives you much more interesting craft design decisions. And heavier batteries and higher power consumption actually makes you think rather than just slapping some more batteries and a magic torque machine on there like in stock. Batteries are ~30% of RL satellite payload mass.

I know you're not trying to recreate BTSM or Realism Overhaul, but there is a huge gulf between stock balance and BTSM balance, and it would be awesome to see a mod that explores that niche.

EDIT: I'm also a vote for balancing all parts against each other vs. obsoleting. RPL style tech levels could be added later to rebalance the tech tree.

Edited April 8, 2014 by curiousepic

[stupid_chris]

Anyone that has played Better Than Starting Manned knows how (drastically) reduced torque for reaction wheels and all command pods gives you much more interesting craft design decisions. And heavier batteries and higher power consumption actually makes you think rather than just slapping some more batteries and a magic torque machine on there like in stock. Batteries are ~30% of RL satellite payload mass.

I know you're not trying to recreate BTSM or Realism Overhaul, but there is a huge gulf between stock balance and BTSM balance, and it would be awesome to see a mod that explores that niche.

EDIT: I'm also a vote for balancing all parts against each other vs. obsoleting. RPL style tech levels could be added later to rebalance the tech tree.

I'm not trying to go anywhere as close to what BTSM does. I don't want to render the game harder, nor making things more realistic. Both things can be obtained with those other mods. I'm just trying to have things behave in a sensible manner, and to have some sort of logic that unifies the different parts.

I'll see about reducing the torque of reaction wheels, but I don't want to cut it down to a point where reaction wheels feel more like a dead weight than anything else.

[curiousepic]

Gotcha. For those interested, Ialdabaoth is working on RealKerbin, which might be a little more in line with what I'm envisioning.

Edited April 8, 2014 by curiousepic

[Hyomoto]

I'm not trying to go anywhere as close to what BTSM does. I don't want to render the game harder, nor making things more realistic. Both things can be obtained with those other mods. I'm just trying to have things behave in a sensible manner, and to have some sort of logic that unifies the different parts.

Which is why I'm interested in your project. Everyone keeps putting 'realism and fun' on the scale, but why not 'logic and fun'? All you've done so far is just diversify the parts. The game isn't harder, we just have more meaningful options. However, I wouldn't be afraid of making the game harder unless you do it just for the sake thereof. If a change makes sense and has benefits, it really shouldn't matter. I've been playing around with your patches, and so far I can't really add much because I think it is either fine, or will take quite a few hours of play to start to figure out where it is not.

[Rakaydos]

I go tthis into orbit with just 2 long SRBs, with this part mod.

Much better than single staging to laythe.

[ayana]

Only this mod doesn't touch the stats of the SRBs in any way.

Edit: Now do it with a payload that big and full, it's more fun.

Edited April 9, 2014 by ayana

[stupid_chris]

I go tthis into orbit with just 2 long SRBs, with this part mod.

http://i.imgur.com/yFi8HiW.png

Much better than single staging to laythe.

If you haven't updated to v1.2 yet, there was a typo in the SLS engine config. It was at 10t instead of 13t.

Else, this is just a good way to show that an engine can haul a lot without having ridiculous stats.

[maccollo]

I go tthis into orbit with just 2 long SRBs, with this part mod.

http://i.imgur.com/yFi8HiW.png

Much better than single staging to laythe.

So you used a 1.5 stage? Seems a lot more appropriate

[Rakaydos]

This is my model saturn 5, with the 1.2 version:

Tank and a half for the quad, a tank and a 3/2 adapter for the large bell gets me to a mun encounter and orbit. I still havnt tested using the claw to grab the lander, though.

Service moduel has a skipper with a quarter orange and an RCS tank, and the LEM has a poodle with the smallest s2 tank.

[ayana]

218 tons and a little extra. The quad may weigh 13 tons but a quad of quads sure makes a good booster. And my TWR was still a little above 1.5 on the pad.

[Quiana]

I rather like how the subtle tweaks have, to me, improved thought on design and implementation of lifting stages as well as long-term voyages. I tended to design around some mods anyways, but tweaking the stock parts gives a really, really nice curve with the few part mods I've put into my game that feels right. Everything has a purpose, from the littlest engine that could to the lifting stages where it's a choice between size and weight. Sometimes large, light payloads just need less thrust to keep them from disintegrating which gives good purpose to smaller engines, whereas the heavy lifter stages even throttled down and tweaked still could put too much stress on it without careful monitoring of the throttle.

[maccollo]

Just tried this with RSS. It locked the balance pretty much exactly where it was pre-arm, requiring 4 stages for an efficient launch.

With stock balance (if you can call it that) all my RSS rockets consisted of the same 2 engines.

Edited April 10, 2014 by maccollo

[Rakaydos]

Just tried this with RSS. It locked the balance pretty much exactly where it was pre-arm, requiring 4 stages for an efficient launch.

With stock balance (if you can call it that) all my RSS rockets consisted of the same 2 engines.

4 bigger stages, right? Still useful for getting large payloads into orbit?

Something I noticed while playing with a bigger saturn replica, was that the size 2 nosecones fit nicely inside the bell of the size 3 upper stage engine, without any clipping issues at all. Now that nosecones have fuel in them, I'm thinking of making a larger lifter with staged boosters to take advantage of this. maybie land a class E or something, once I get the bugs worked out.

[maccollo]

4 bigger stages, right? Still useful for getting large payloads into orbit?

In stock KSP yes, since all you need to do to lift the same amount is to throw a bit more fuel on your stages.

But since the re-balance lowers the delta V cap it means you need more stages to reach orbit in RSS. With stock ARM it can be done efficiently in 3 stages, or even 2 stages.

Since more stages are requires it means the complexity of the rocket went up quite a bit.

However, I prefer it this way. The reason being that more stages gives you many more opportunities to optimize your rocket and to squeeze every bit of delta V you can out of it. It makes the design process extremely rewarding

Also size 3 component allows me to launch up to 100 tons without any lag at all.