Just some of my thoughts and questions for the devs and other users.

[Vas]

I really like this game, but it kinda seems a bit slow really. It feels more like the game has been given to the modding community and development has slown to a near stop. The game also still feels like it's in beta, because it feels empty when you first start. A lot is missing from this game that should be there by default, without mods. I checked some posts and found a do not suggest list as well as a list of what has already been suggested. These lists show that the devs have a lot of no comment type things, that means they may not be planning to do that feature at all and don't want to hear people suggest it.

The point of suggesting is to show what your users want. If users want to be able to set up a new base on a moon or a planet, why not let them tell you this is what they want? It sucks building a 1000 ton ship to get a 50 ton object into space every single time you want to get to space. It sucks building 1/10th of a space station, and launching it with 10 times it's mass, then docking new parts to it with 10 new launches, then trying to move it you find out the game is broken in this area. There are a great many things I want to see in the game, that are on the do not suggest list. I'm going to list those things here in this topic anyway, because I feel the devs should still know about them and know that the users want these things to become planned features rather than a "meh, I don't know" on the planned feature list.

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Some of my questions for now, are why are 2 important game play things listed as never happening?

Steam Achievements, a very easy thing to implement and something that makes the game more fun and lets you explore to areas you normally wouldn't. Currently the game is just "do whatever the hell you want any way you want". An achievement is something to really work for, try to just to accomplish a goal. Of course there will be people who cheat the achievements, but that doesn't mean you should abolish it for those who actually love working for achievements. As a friend also said; "I want the devs to be aware of what the most interesting and exciting things in their game are, and program the game to watch for those things, and let us know what those things are. I want them to encourage us to explore the capabilities of the game in more than just a "go do whatever" way." I believe achievements really make the game more fun and think they should really be added. There is already a mod that kinda adds them, but they really do need to be made official. Maybe you can even add an achievement for discovering the black monolith.

Autopilot systems, like MechJeb. This is a serious need of course. Maybe not an auto everything type thing but better auto pilot than we have now, which is NONE. Do you honestly think astronauts currently go into space with a joy stick and a 360 controller and eyeball their destination and hope they hit their target? Whoops, Came in to steep. Huston, lets try again tomorrow. *Crash, explode, die* -Roger that, we'll send 3 more astronauts up tomorrow, good bye crew, you'll be missed, like the last 3000 people that tried to land at that exact location on that exact moon.- Computer systems are always there to help the astronauts, they are there to do the things the computers can't. The computers are there to do the things that a human brain can't. They keep track of many things and do EXACT measurements and trajectories and mathematics and all. The human brain simply can't keep track of this much data, nor is it capable of working at the speed required to execute all the required exact measurement commands, with 2 other pilots as well because their brains aren't linked together so they have to communicate with words. Computers electronically communicate with every system on board in milliseconds and execute things precisely when and how much needed. However, they can't self repair or exit the ship and pick up rocks or explore for an astronaut so you still need crew. Not to mention, if the crew has come up with a better solution than the computer, they can tell the computer this solution and it can work with that, and still execute things exactly as commanded. Astronauts can slip and make mistakes, computers can't (or is highly unlikely). Anyway, this is just my view of why MechJeb type control should be in the game by default. Should still require high research of course, like it currently does in the mod.

Why is the cost system currently useless? I thought that was supposed to be enabled when career mode started working. I mean for my very first ship launch ever, I can build a super mega ship of small fuel tanks and thrusters and girders and whatnot, with like a hundred parachuts if I really wanted. Just makes me wonder why the cost system wasn't made functional yet, and a budget system added in to make career mode just a bit harder than it currently is. I mean you could easily start out with recovering survived ship parts that land on the surface and recover some money that way, as well as later on building a salvage ship to collect debris floating around in space to reprocess or reuse and send back to the planet for more credits. Sure you can't recover the fuel lost and all, but you can recover some costs from debris (and obviously stuff closer to the launch site will get you more credits back for not having to take the parts n from the other side of the world) but yea, a budget system would add more stuff to the game just in it's self. Making it more complex, making people be more intuitive with their designs rather than just slapping on 50 super large solid booster fuel rockets and a hundred struts to get to space quick, easy, and pain free. I just took another look and see it is in the planned feature page, but is no where near anytime soon (the highlight colors).

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As for the things I wish to see, well there are a few things I really wish to see. One, and this is the most important, is building new bases.

Currently the game takes about 13000 science to fully research EVERYTHING but this can be done. There should be further bits there to allow more research, past the furthest current points, research that allows you to build new bases on new planets or moons or even a new space base to build ships right from space. Obviously if you build a space base, you need to launch resources from planets or moons to it to construct the parts. If you build on another planet, you basically mine the planet's materials to build your ships. There are many parts of this that can be expanded into new suggestions like parts that you can only build on certain planets or even fuels you can only get on certain planets, etc etc. The point is, you need to be able to launch to other planets and start stations or moons to start moon stations or even an orbital space super station (super station because it won't be an ISS, it'll be a large space port in space). I think in order to do this, you need to launch a station pod, this pod will be heavy, and contain a small scale habitat and building area with 10 kerbals. You then need to launch more materials and your station progress bar will be displayed on the pod you set up which can't be moved once you activate station mode. Eventually you'll have to have sent 20-50 ships depending on how much you get up there at once, with at least 100 kerbals living in the station you've built before you can start using it as a location to build new ships. This starts out as a small scale facility, only allowing small ships, but you can build more parts of it with the planet or moon you're on without needing to launch more ships to it, all you need to do is send more kerbals to populate it for larger ships. Anyhow, this is my take on building new bases where you can construct ships from scratch.

Added too this above bit, automatic launches using previously successful ships (they may not simulate though, it just takes the cost and parts and such out to launch automatically, so long as you've made the run once successfully). This means you can build a supply ship to supply something like food, water, oxygen to a station (if you have a mod to enable food water and oxygen), launch once and dock successfully once, then undock and send the ship back down towards the planet or even off to space away from the station. These auto launches would simply just plant a new end result in space with the same trajectory as your last launch ending and all in the same pattern you did. Transfering the contents of whatever ou transfered last time or whatnot. This one is more complex and would need it's own topic to think more on. Of course I know this is another one of those things you guys (the devs) don't want people posting topics about.

Another thing I've been wanting to see, but seems to be blocked from being allowed to suggest, is welding parts together in space. if you launch 5 ships and a station into space and dock them all together, and then try to move them, they wiggle all about as if they are gonna snap off and break. I also wanted to build large square structures in space with the I-Beams and other building parts. Currently you need like 50 struts just to hold up a structure to try and attempt to launch it into space. This doesn't work well (had to remove all struts to get a good example of a failure, accidently made mine too strong). Why not allow us to launch a ship with a cargohold of I-Beams and Struts and other small-medium sized stuff/parts and let us use EVA mode to connect things to our ships / stations while IN SPACE! We can then build a real, proper space station that looks better than a flying pen.... well. You know.

Career mode should come in several stages of difficulty, easy which always lets you revert flights. Moderate which lets you revert a flight so long as you do it before you've reached space. Hard which only lets you revert a flight if you haven't gone above 2500, this is usually done because of a mistake, forgotten part, or physics issues. Generally large ships fall apart right on the launch pad because of the hard core physics turning on right then and there rather than easing into it. (You guys should probably fix that >.>)

Lastly, one of my more favorite things that I wish existed in the core game. Survivability. Why is there no food, water, oxygen systems? Come on, a kerbal floating around in space infinitely with no oxygen or food or water? It shouldn't be too hard to add a survivability system. The mod I linked is mostly functional, but it shows that a system like this can work if it has a coder who can actually fix it when needed. It adds pods that require the main resources to function. But instead of the pod requiring the resources, it really should be the kerbals who require sustenance. Starving / Dehydrated / Suffocating indicators-statuses for kerbals who are in danger would be added in before kerbals die from lack of something. Oxygen gives 5 min before death, dehydrated gives 3 days before death, starving gives at most 2 weeks before death, so long as you can get a healthy kerbal to feed them. Or you likely just set it to 7 days. Anyway. Just another system to make the game a bit more complex, adding to the intuitiveness of launching ships to space and more science value even by watching what happens to your supplies in different situations, and making more fun space designs and stations that can survive long term.

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So, why is it that we can't suggest these things anymore? Is it that too many people made these suggestions and you're just sick of seeing it spam the forums? Or is it too many people posted simple undetailed things like "I want food" with no balancing thoughts of any kind? Or maybe you really just don't want to implement these things and you don't want more people seeing such ideas to have larger volumes of people wanting that thing too? I mean, the point of suggestions is to see what the user base wants after all and denying the ability to post something rules out the ability to balance a thing that you may be planning to make before you make it. If you for example were planning to do something in the next release but your idea was rough and unbalanced and someone was able to post a suggestion for such a thing on how it should work, and their version is better than your idea for how to do it, you can save time by not first coding your thing your way and instead coding it the new way that is more efficient and balanced. By denying them this allowance of posting their idea, you rule out their balance and make your own version which the masses may not like because it is unbalanced or broken in some way and then you just either delete it permanently and never go back to it or you leave it as is because you spent so long on it that you don't want to rework it for a while.

Denying things all together is fine and all, but it really does help if you explain why you refuse to do something. Like my questions earlier. Why did you absolutely completely deny Steam Achievements? I can guess at why you deny autopiloting, even though it is realistic to have. The others are almost obvious to me, but others may not understand why. It doesn't take long to add a small reason why an object will never make it into the game.

This isn't so much of a suggestion thread, more of a rant thread about why I can't make such suggestions that I've had on my mind for a long time and really want to see in this game. I love space games, especially games that are more realistic and don't add illogical impossible things. I love this game, it was the only one I could play while my laptop HDD was damaged and so I was stuck playing it for a week and got really into it. So much so that I even stopped playing Space Engineers even after my HDD has been fully restored. I can't really get into career mode though without some of these things I've mentioned and I'm having a hard time finding mods that have the stuff properly balanced and working because modders often abandon their work later on without ever returning or even fixing the broken bits before they leave. The official unmodded game is so empty too.

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Anyhow, now that that's done with. You developers, staff, other users can tell me what you think about everything I've stated in my somewhat rant sort of topic. I'm sorry for any typos and stuff. I am dyslexic, but I have done my best to double check and correct everything. Links go to their respective mods or screenshots I've taken, nothing bad or advertistic here.

EDIT: Wow, that's a huge wall of text. Sorry xD I guess I'm not that great at formatting this stuff.

Edited May 21, 2014 by Vas
Edit listed.

[VintageXP]

Moved to Suggestions and Development Discussion.

[r4pt0r]

The game shouldnt feel like its still in beta, as its not that far yet. its alpha. literally version 0.23.5

orbital assembly is something that space programs do. spawning a space-station in orbit would be really dumb imo.

no steam acheivments/steam workshop because not everyone has the game via steam.

auto-pilot is cheating (inb4 "you cant cheat in a single-player sandbox game")

costs are being implemented soon.

the rest of your points can be answered with either "the game is still in alpha" or "the do not suggest list exists because the devs are either tired of hearing things they are planning to implement, or they do not want that feature in their game."

edit: also nice finding "the" black monolith, now go find the others

Edited May 21, 2014 by r4pt0r

[Vanamonde]

Vas, I'm afraid you've misunderstood some things. The game seems incomplete because it IS incomplete, but development has nowhere near stopped. We get updates with bugfixes, new features, and new parts several times per year (but not on any kind of regular schedule).

There are some items on the What Not to Suggest list which Squad has said they will never include in the game, but that's not why they were included on the list. Some things were included because they are already planned so there's no need to ask for them, some were added because they've been talked to death and it's time to move on to new discussion subjects, and a few were put on there because they cause nasty arguments every time they come up. The list is not Squad's yes/no list. It is the list of things we have found which tend to cause problems on the forum.

Edited May 21, 2014 by Vanamonde

[allmhuran]

I think there are some fair points in there.

I wouldn't say development seems slow exactly. Sure, it's slower than it used to be, but given the increased size and complexity of the code base I would say (as a developer for 20 years myself) that the pace of development seems about right.

I would say, however, that the game still feels a bit "thin". The thing that makes KSP fun an interesting is the vehicle assembly part, that's where you get to engage your imagination, learn new ship buiding skills, improve your designs, and so on. There's also some amount of engagement when it actually comes to flight in the atmosphere. All of this is really fantastic and has been enough to keep me engaged for what has probably been more than 1000 hours.

One you're in orbit, though, things actually become pretty simple. Don't confuse "simple" with "easy". Getting the hang of orbital mechanics can take time. But once you have gotten the hang of it, there's really very little for a player to actually do. Set maneuver, wait, burn, stop burning, wait, repeat. No real skills to learn, no creativity. Science is even worse: Press button, press other button. Repeat. There's no player engagement, no skills to learn, no differentiation. It's all quite trivial and monotonous.

For this reason, I think adding an autopilot feature is probably not the best of ideas. If we added such a thing, the *only* part of the game that would actually require a player at all would be ship construction. Once you hit launch everything could be automated. But then what's the point of playing? We need more gameplay, not less gameplay! What I'm excluding here, though, is things like automated resupply. I agree that once you have proven a design it would certainly do no harm to allow the game to perform tasks for you using the design while you're off doing other things. This would be a huge change in the game mechanics though, turning it from a sandbox into more of a real time strategy game. While many of us might enjoy that, it would likely be a massive development effort.

I also agree that a "what not to suggest" list is a terrible idea. The fact that the game is always in development means that the developers have the opportunity to pick and choose ideas from the community. Shutting down discussion before it can even occur prevents those ideas from surfacing. We saw *exactly this* happen with multiplayer. Time and again we've seen announcements of new features being added, and those features have been less than stellar (science points). When people ask for more transparency, they're not asking for announcements of things after those things have been finalized. We want to hear about the intentions of the team and the ideas that are being tossed around *before* they get implemented, so that there's a chance for good suggestions from the community to be seen by the devs, who can then decide whether they like the idea enough to integrate it into their own ideas *before* it's too late.

[Dunbaratu]

I can guess at why you deny autopiloting, even though it is realistic to have.

One of the most important things about the feel of KSP is that the possibility for the player to do things wrong and make catastrophic failures has to exist, or else there's zero sense of achievement when the player gets things right. If there was no possibility of designing a bad rocket, there'd be no sense of achievement at designing a good one. If there was no possibility of piloting badly, there's be no sense of achievement at piloting well. The problem isn't with having an autopilot. It's with having an autopilot that already works out of the box without the possibility that you designed it wrong. And that is *not* realistic. The software people making the autopilot can make errors just as catastrophic as those made by you when you design the rocket, and in real space programs they had to learn and make mistakes and improve their code along with the rest of the space program learning and making mistakes and improving their designs. Autopiloting should take the same exact approach that everything else in KSP takes - you don't get handed a working autopilot on a silver platter any more so than you get handed a working Saturn V already working perfectly on a silver platter. You get handed a toolbox from which to *build* your autopilot. Otherwise you're just taking away an opportunity for player error, and therefore also an opportunity for player pride in getting it right.

[Bilfr3d]

I really like this game, but it kinda seems a bit slow really. It feels more like the game has been given to the modding community and development has slown to a near stop. The game also still feels like it's in beta, because it feels empty when you first start. A lot is missing from this game that should be there by default, without mods. I checked some posts and found a do not suggest list as well as a list of what has already been suggested. These lists show that the devs have a lot of no comment type things, that means they may not be planning to do that feature at all and don't want to hear people suggest it.

A few things about this.

1. The game feels like a beta, because it is!! It is version 0.23.5 for a reason

2. It might seem empty because you are starting in career mode?? No??

3. A lot is missing, yes... because its a beta and its still in development

4. Vanamonde is completely right about his comment that what is on the 'what not to suggest' list is not a yes/no list that squad has made. This is basically repeating what vanamonde said, but it is just there so things that are happening are not suggested, conflicts don't arise within the forums. That list is also not by the devs, just so you know. Its by the forum operators

[Vas]

The game shouldnt feel like its still in beta, as its not that far yet. its alpha. literally version 0.23.5

orbital assembly is something that space programs do. spawning a space-station in orbit would be really dumb imo.

no steam acheivments/steam workshop because not everyone has the game via steam.

auto-pilot is cheating (inb4 "you cant cheat in a single-player sandbox game")

costs are being implemented soon.

the rest of your points can be answered with either "the game is still in alpha" or "the do not suggest list exists because the devs are either tired of hearing things they are planning to implement, or they do not want that feature in their game."

edit: also nice finding "the" black monolith, now go find the others

Ah, well the game has been out for a long while it seems. I didn't think it'd be almost the same as when I first saw it ages back. I forget how long ago it was when I first saw it but I know it's changed a fair bit in issues, but mostly still just basic parts.

I believe that if you are going to send something large into space, that is square and hard to get up there pre-built, NASA will likely send it up there as parts in containers that do make it up there more easily, then send astronaut engineers up there to do the welding and such. This will allow them to build a space station in orbit. Why is it stupid to build a station in orbit? You send supplies up, then you can build ships in space and not have to waste loads of materials. Living in space stations has been human kind's dream for a while now. It's just far to complex to do right now. NASA would gladly build a space station right now given the funds and the knowledge, because it is much easier launching a ship from space than it is on the ground. You don't even have to trash the thing when you're done. You can salvage almost the entire ship once done, rather than watching 80% of it burn up in atmo and crash and burn into the ground or lost at sea, etc etc. A space station would also let you clean up the billions of floating objects in earth's orbit. This is just examples of why it's not stupid to have a space station. Sure it might make this game easier in ways, but that's the point. You do some complex building of a space station to make your future easier. Of course this would require significant research and a significant amount of resources that you have to get up there and a space version of the launchpad would still require resources from the planet, when you could build on a moon instead to get some of your resources. Or even a low grav planet to get most/if-not-all of your resources there.

Obviously steam achievements are optional, not required. People who own the game outside of steam can still play and enjoy, it's not like steam achievements would make their games not work. Besides that, I believe anyone who owns the game outside of steam can ask the devs for a steam code, right? If they want the achievements and such that is. One more thing for this, achievements can both be part of steam and part of the game. Saved in the player's profile, while those with steam can get those achievements on steam. I've seen other games do it even.

So you're telling me that our astronauts, NASA in the real world is cheating? Damn, I wish I could cheat in real life like they do. :| Cause like, they totally don't need those computers, the human brain can do billions of calculations a second and react to anything in a single millisecond and like do perfect millisecond by millisecond precision actions. Right?

I thought that black square was a texture glitch. I tried clicking on it, jumping up and down under it, doing science under it, nothing happened. :/

Vas, I'm afraid you've misunderstood some things. The game seems incomplete because it IS incomplete, but development has nowhere near stopped. We get updates with bugfixes, new features, and new parts several times per year (but not on any kind of regular schedule).

There are some items on the What Not to Suggest list which Squad has said they will never include in the game, but that's not why they were included on the list. Some things were included because they are already planned so there's no need to ask for them, some were added because they've been talked to death and it's times to move on to new discussion subjects, and a few were put on there because they cause nasty arguments every time they come up. The list is not Squad's yes/no list. It is the list of things we have found which tend to cause problems on the forum.

Yea, I thought the game had been out for long enough to have a lot done by now. I didn't know it was way back in alpha still. I guess it's just slowly developing, slowly enough that I see mods that have been abandon for a very long time, more than a year even. Sucks that good mods get abandon and such. Usually you only see this in older games that have finished development or have abandon development. The list of what not to suggest looked like a list of what won't be implemented. The list of what is planned is mostly black, showing that there are "plans" but none will happen any time soon. I think the what not to suggest list could do with some color saying what will and what won't be implemented. I believe we still diserve and explanation as to why some things won't be implemented, the red things.

I wouldn't say development seems slow exactly. Sure, it's slower than it used to be, but given the increased size and complexity of the code base I would say (as a developer for 20 years myself) that the pace of development seems about right.

I would say, however, that the game still feels a bit "thin". The thing that makes KSP fun an interesting is the vehicle assembly part, that's where you get to engage your imagination, learn new ship buiding skills, improve your designs, and so on. There's also some amount of engagement when it actually comes to flight in the atmosphere. All of this is really fantastic and has been enough to keep me engaged for what has probably been more than 1000 hours.

One you're in orbit, though, things actually become pretty simple. Don't confuse "simple" with "easy". Getting the hang of orbital mechanics can take time. But once you have gotten the hang of it, there's really very little for a player to actually do. Set maneuver, wait, burn, stop burning, wait, repeat. No real skills to learn, no creativity. Science is even worse: Press button, press other button. Repeat. There's no player engagement, no skills to learn, no differentiation. It's all quite trivial and monotonous.

For this reason, I think adding an autopilot feature is probably not the best of ideas. If we added such a thing, the *only* part of the game that would actually require a player at all would be ship construction. Once you hit launch everything could be automated. But then what's the point of playing? We need more gameplay, not less gameplay! What I'm excluding here, though, is things like automated resupply. I agree that once you have proven a design it would certainly do no harm to allow the game to perform tasks for you using the design while you're off doing other things. This would be a huge change in the game mechanics though, turning it from a sandbox into more of a real time strategy game. While many of us might enjoy that, it would likely be a massive development effort.

I also agree that a "what not to suggest" list is a terrible idea. The fact that the game is always in development means that the developers have the opportunity to pick and choose ideas from the community. Shutting down discussion before it can even occur prevents those ideas from surfacing. We saw *exactly this* happen with multiplayer. Time and again we've seen announcements of new features being added, and those features have been less than stellar (science points). When people ask for more transparency, they're not asking for announcements of things after those things have been finalized. We want to hear about the intentions of the team and the ideas that are being tossed around *before* they get implemented, so that there's a chance for good suggestions from the community to be seen by the devs, who can then decide whether they like the idea enough to integrate it into their own ideas *before* it's too late.

It sure feels slow to me, I guess I'm used to games that update a little faster, but then again there are those games that update once every year like StarForge I suppose.

I like the creating vehicles, yea. It is a fun part of the game, and it isn't the only thing you can do. Even if you auto pilot many aspects of the game, you can still do more, explore and stuff. Connect new parts to a space station with docking ports to make your station bigger and then move it further away once you've launched up enough fuel for it and such. If you have the ability to connect struts and i-beams and other construction bits to your stations while in space then you have even more creativity and stuff, and you get to build stuff manually, floating around in EVA mode, welding parts while watching your fuel levels and power levels. You don't want to run out of power or fuel or oxygen while building in space, do you?

I get that some things can be suggested to death and all, but it does get a bit annoying when you can't suggest your version of it. Maybe have an extra moderator assigned to cleaning up actual duplicates and having a mega thread of the same idea or something. I dunno. Meh. I just wanted to be able to give my version, so if what I want is ever implimented, it isn't done in a way that is terrible simply because the devs didn't have other ideas on how to do it to it in a different way that might have been better.

The auto pilot system isn't super important really, because there is a mod for it and such and I guess it could be considered cheap. I don't think that's going anywhere any time soon. The other things I really want to see as part of the game though.

I just remembered that this game needs a slow time warp. To slow time down below 1x speed, this helps when launching heavy vehicles and physics rips it to pieces because your PC isn't strong enough to calculate all it needs to or something. Or maybe you want to slow time to 1/16th so you ahve time to plan a maneuver that happens 1 minute from where you are. Just another thought I had before I forget.

2. It might seem empty because you are starting in career mode?? No??

Nah, I've tried both modes.

Edited May 21, 2014 by Vas
Avoid double posting.

[Xaiier]

Holy wall of text Batman!

Honestly your entire wall of text can be answered simply, dividing your suggestions into groups:

• First there are things that simply aren't done yet. The devs have them planned and they are working on them.
  
• Second, there are things that mods provide, either to make up for a lack of a real dev feature or because the devs decided that's not the way they wanted their game to be.
  
• Third, there are things that not a large portion of the community wants, so nobody has really considered them.
  

Also to note, the game is in alpha, and the true state of the game isn't always obvious when you are new, as news about various things spreads in various ways. A lot of your questions would be solved simply by lurking more around the community.

I just remembered that this game needs a slow time warp. To slow time down below 1x speed, this helps when launching heavy vehicles and physics rips it to pieces because your PC isn't strong enough to calculate all it needs to or something. Or maybe you want to slow time to 1/16th so you ahve time to plan a maneuver that happens 1 minute from where you are. Just another thought I had before I forget.

Provided handily by me, right down there:

|

V

[r4pt0r]

just to clarify op, docking style orbital assembly is awesome, thats fine, i love my big spacestations. but i read your post as essentially bringing parts to space, so you can have a space vab and build and spawn a craft in orbit. orbital/extra planetary construction would make the game far too easy.

edit: also, look up the easter egg thread at your own peril (cuz of spoilers if that bothers you) theres a few monoliths, kerbin has pyramids in the desert, other planets also have strange....features we shall say.

Edited May 21, 2014 by r4pt0r

[Vas]

Provided handily by me, right down there

I already have it, but it doesn't work in the way I like. It should come stock with the game. When I slow down time, everything else slows down with it, even my controls and game and everything about it. You're basically slowing down the program, not time. When I pause, everything stops, even the map. I can't move my camera to see new angles because everything froze right there and I have to play time to get the map to fix. Defeats the purpose of pause.

just to clarify op, docking style orbital assembly is awesome, thats fine, i love my big spacestations. but i read your post as essentially bringing parts to space, so you can have a space vab and build and spawn a craft in orbit. orbital/extra planetary construction would make the game far too easy.

Not spawning, adding onto. You launch into space, you have a container full of struts, i-beams, and those other small construction bits. Maybe all parts can go to space but you have limited space. You leave the ship there for now, as a station start. You launch another ship with more parts, dock it with the station you just begun. Now you exit the craft into EVA mode and start connecting struts between the docked ship and the main ship, to make it permanently part of the station and unable to break away. You then go to the front, or back, and start working on attaching your I-beams and such, then you are finally able to start hooking up your solar arrays on the big square I-beam setup you just made, spanning 10 I-Beams across on all sides. Something you can't launch into space normally. Did you see the screenshots in the post?

[Xaiier]

I already have it, but it doesn't work in the way I like. It should come stock with the game. When I slow down time, everything else slows down with it, even my controls and game and everything about it. You're basically slowing down the program, not time. When I pause, everything stops, even the map. I can't move my camera to see new angles because everything froze right there and I have to play time to get the map to fix. Defeats the purpose of pause.

Well, the problem is that SQUAD has made an annoying amount of things dependent on fixedUpdate(the physics) instead of update(the game loop), so the inability to zoom and move around in the map is hindered by the slow motion. It might be possible to rewrite the cameras, but I've not investigated that yet - it could get pretty messy.

Not spawning, adding onto. You launch into space, you have a container full of struts, i-beams, and those other small construction bits. Maybe all parts can go to space but you have limited space. You leave the ship there for now, as a station start. You launch another ship with more parts, dock it with the station you just begun. Now you exit the craft into EVA mode and start connecting struts between the docked ship and the main ship, to make it permanently part of the station and unable to break away. You then go to the front, or back, and start working on attaching your I-beams and such, then you are finally able to start hooking up your solar arrays on the big square I-beam setup you just made, spanning 10 I-Beams across on all sides. Something you can't launch into space normally. Did you see the screenshots in the post?

You could bring parts up with docking ports on all of them and attach them with a tug, but that would get laggy fast. The KAS mod does have some of those features though.

Another thing is that you keep suggesting that things be added to the game. SQUAD is making a game as they see fit, according to their vision, but they understand that that won't please everyone, so they have allowed us to extensively mod it to make it how we want. Not everything needs to become a standard feature, often times modders have better and more interesting ideas, but they usually don't all work together with each other, so having the ability to pick and choose your game elements is great.

Edited May 21, 2014 by Xaiier

[Vas]

Well, the problem is that SQUAD has made an annoying amount of things dependent on fixedUpdate(the physics) instead of update(the game loop), so the inability to zoom and move around in the map is hindered by the slow motion. It might be possible to rewrite the cameras, but I've not investigated that yet - it could get pretty messy.

It's the only reason I'd really slow down time, is to plan maneuvers and such. Mech Jeb can't do some of the maneuvers I need so I have to manually do them myself at times. Rather complex maneuvers even.

You could bring parts up with docking ports on all of them and attach them with a tug, but that would get laggy fast. The KAS mod does have some of those features though.

I'm trying out some new mods, this KAS mod is very confusing so far. I don't really understand it, guess I'd need a video of someone using it and all. I managed to figure out how to take solar panels off my debris and move them to my command hub, but that's about it. No struts or connecting things together for solid connections to prevent things from moving around or falling apart later on, docking ports don't do this, things still move around a bit without those struts to strengthen them.

Another thing is that you keep suggesting that things be added to the game. SQUAD is making a game as they see fit, according to their vision, but they understand that that won't please everyone, so they have allowed us to extensively mod it to make it how we want. Not everything needs to become a standard feature, often times modders have better and more interesting ideas, but they usually don't all work together with each other, so having the ability to pick and choose your game elements is great.

There are several issues with modders that make it hard to enjoy the game when you have to mod it.

1. When you have 10 mods, one is always abandon and requires constant fixing. another works perfectly. three more are outdated. one has a conflict with the other. one has a dev who refuses to make something compatible with the other. One mod somehow breaks all the time and there is no way to diagnose it. Many problems crop up when using mods made by multiple people, and you can't really get multiple people to work together to make a mod pack. It would certainly be nice if I could get several of you together to make your mods all work together and make a brilliant mod pack, but that is likely something that won't happen.

2. Mods are often abandon. I am using a mod that I had to repair myself and is still broken in 3 major areas and many small areas. I just barely got it functional enough to use but I almost can't use it anymore because it needs extensive repairs. It saddens me because this is a very important mod for me. Very very important. Meh. :/ And it was abandon long ago. When a mod is abandon like this, left broken and useless, you usually get left with no choice but to abandon it too and delete your save game and start anew all over again and rework everything you did and your entire play style is forced to change, depending on how critical that mod was.

3. Well, I basically said it above, multiple mods often conflict with each other. There is also the balancing issue. Some people balance things differently. While one mod gives you an object that takes x amount of Argon and xxxx amount of energy to give xx amount of thrust, the other mod adding a new thruster for the same thrust might take xxx amount of energy and xx amount of Argon. So balancing comes out differently amongst multiple mods. You also get an excess of things you'll never use, very large lists with large pages full of parts all over the place, this happens when you use a mod for 1/3rd of what it has to offer and another mod for 2/3rd of what it has to offer and another one for 1/5th of it's stuff. Etc etc.

But yea, I know modding is the only way to get everything you want in a game. I just wonder where they actually plan this game to go, it's happening so slowly that it's hard to tell where it's going. I know that science is tedious repetition, I know that kerbals are immortal, and currently there is nothing exciting you can do other than intentionally blowing up ships because once you're in space with sufficient fuel, everything left to do is incredibly easy. In the un-modded game, almost nothing to do. No point in space stations as they just fall apart after you docked 5 ships to them and try to move them incredibly super slowly and such. Nor does it matter since a station is useless. It provides no science value of any kind. Observing things over a long period of time like the ISS does gives you nothing. Small probe satellites also do nothing, no science value for sending a probe to scan stuff remotely before you go visit. It makes me wonder if the game was really made just to let you build wacky ships and blow them up and get a giggle out of screaming kerbals. I'm sure they'll add more stuff to the game though, make it more than screaming immortal kerbals. I will just have to rely on mods for everything else I want.

[Xaiier]

I'm trying out some new mods, this KAS mod is very confusing so far. I don't really understand it, guess I'd need a video of someone using it and all. I managed to figure out how to take solar panels off my debris and move them to my command hub, but that's about it. No struts or connecting things together for solid connections to prevent things from moving around or falling apart later on, docking ports don't do this, things still move around a bit without those struts to strengthen them.

I thought KAS could attach struts...i know there is a mod that can do that.

It would certainly be nice if I could get several of you together to make your mods all work together and make a brilliant mod pack, but that is likely something that won't happen.

Many mods work just fine together, are there specific problems you have ran into? Also, more and more of the modding community is being standardized, to allow mods to cooperate with stuff like resources, etc.

2. Mods are often abandon. I am using a mod that I had to repair myself and is still broken in 3 major areas and many small areas. I just barely got it functional enough to use but I almost can't use it anymore because it needs extensive repairs. It saddens me because this is a very important mod for me. Very very important. Meh. :/ And it was abandon long ago. When a mod is abandon like this, left broken and useless, you usually get left with no choice but to abandon it too and delete your save game and start anew all over again and rework everything you did and your entire play style is forced to change, depending on how critical that mod was.

.

I'm curious as to what that abandonware mod is.

It makes me wonder if the game was really made just to let you build wacky ships and blow them up and get a giggle out of screaming kerbals.

Well, yes.

[Javster]

For someone who's dyslexic, your spelling is pretty good!

And I agree with your points, it feels slightly annoying that they have flat-out said "no" for Steam Achievements. Squad are the only ones who can add them. If you don't like them, play without Steam!

[Vas]

I thought KAS could attach struts...i know there is a mod that can do that.

Many mods work just fine together, are there specific problems you have ran into? Also, more and more of the modding community is being standardized, to allow mods to cooperate with stuff like resources, etc.

I'm curious as to what that abandonware mod is.

You have skype? Easier talking (text) about this in messages rather than on a forum getting replies 12-24 hours later xP

For someone who's dyslexic, your spelling is pretty good!

Spell check. I have to proof read everything I type, but sometimes I miss stuff. I have a friend who just uses dyslexia as an excuse to leave things spelled terribly so I can never understand what the hell he meant to say and got pissed at me when I told him to do what I did to fix it.