I don't want realism, I want believability

[Javster]

Very good way of expressing it.

5. etage

Francais? Google translate

[phoenix_ca]

That's why they should be able to function at 10,000x warp (but have like 1 N thrust*). That way the burn actually takes 25% less real (player's) time than a current 2 kN engine at 4x warp... but you can thrust for weeks or months of in-game time and make it actually act like an ion engine.

That's all well and good, if you only have one vessel in-flight at any given time. As soon as a player wants to say, launch a probe and send some Kerbals to the Mun, such a system would fail spectacularly, requiring the player to be in two places at once. Which leads me back to my original conclusion.

Quantum mechanics, for example, is generally considered weird because it does not match anyone's preceding knowledge, experience, or beliefs. It is, however, a real thing.

On the other hand, people have usually no problems reading fantasy novels with magic and unnatural animals and beings because it matches their beliefs.

That doesn't make any sense. Is that suggesting that a person who reads a fantasy novel who doesn't believe in the existence of monsters and magic in the real world would "have a hard time" reading it? It's absurd ( level of thinking). Similarly something like quantum mechanics could be "weird" but that doesn't mean someone is going to chuck it out.

I think you've conflated suspension of disbelief with something else entirely.

[Tuareg]

I used to think that they could not go on

And life was nothing but an awful song

But now I know the meaning of true love

They leaning on the everlasting arms

If I can see it, they can do it

If I just believe it, there's nothing to it

I believe they can fly

I believe they can touch the sky

I think about it every night and day

They Spread their wings and fly away

I believe they can soar

I see them running through that open door

I believe they can fly

I believe they can fly

I believe they can fly

-------

So looks like it's again up to me to present the "different view".

First of all i will never ever believe things that are in a game no matter how believable they seem to be.

It's just a game, you know?

Many of us read and enjoy comics, anyone believes in that stuff in there? Anyone reading it because it is believable?

I did not hear a case of someone jumping out of the 5. etage because he thought he could fly like Superman. (At least not without taking drugs)

I don't think making a game believable is bad or something but i fail to see the greater sense in it. If i have fun with a game that is not believable it's fine for me too.

"Kerbals have superpowers and they ship's survive the hottest reentries because they make their hulls out of kerbonium which is undestroyable." -> This sentence makes perfect sense for me.

"I don't think kerbals could survive a trip to Jool because, you know, they are sitting all the time." -> That one does not make any sense in my thinking.

We humans have to stretch our legs from time to time yes, who tells us what Kerbals have to be like? I guess our own imagination. Someone thinks they have to be like us others don't.

Some will tell you they have adamantium skeletons surviving the worst accidents. Some don't think that is possible.

I won't tell myself that a game is bad because it's not believable because i would have to tell myself Superman, Iron Man, Spiderman and all my other heroes are bad too because they are not believable.

This topic has powder keg qualities, i do not feel comfortable discussing about believes.

Espescially not in games.

The rules say no religious content.

well, i think you mess up the believable (at least as the others mean it) and realistic a bit... both superman and batman are believable (i think imaginable is a better word) but neither of them are realistic. If batman would start to fly without his technology it would break the immersion but superman has superpower so for him to fly on his own is fine. I think the same about every games, and so about KSP too, that yeah, it has to be believable, just as others said. If it breaks the immersion, if i see something and say, ohhhh man, its stupid, it should never happen... i will try a couple of more times and if it persist, i will just drop that game and look for an other. little things, like the jetpack will refill only with entering a living module or pod was already a nice tiny change, similar would be if the unmanned ships would need an antenna in order to receive commands or the lifesuport mentioned here already or if the SAS wouldnt make my rocket behave like a pendulum or ... or... or... i could say a lot more.

[Dunbaratu]

I think this thread is using the word "believable" incorrectly from the start. It sounds like what it's describing is not believability but rather internal consistency. That what it's advocating is that theres' nothing wrong with making things that behave in ways you don't believe could really happen *IN OUR WORLD* (which is what "believable" actually means) so long as they look like they could work that way in *some alternate setting* because they are operating on consistent rules that at least agree with themselves.

Good sci-fi invents alternate rules for its universe and makes them consistent and sticks by them. Bad Sci-fi just makes up whatever the author felt like on the spot for that one plot to work and then moves on ignoring that this was said by the next episode, making up completely contradictory things for the next episode. A lot of TV shows suffer from this problem because different episodes are written by different scriptwriters who didn't all get together in a meeting and share notes.

[Northstar1989]

-Snipped-

I strongly agree. I want something that is believable, it doesn't have to be 100% realistic (I have no problem with ion engines, for example)

The problem is, of course, different players find different things believable. For instance, I find the patched conics model a little weird, because I know enough about orbital mechanics to expect things like Legrange Points... Not every player does...

Better aerodynamics, clouds, re-entry, life-support: things like that are no-brainers. The toughest part, IMHO, is finding ways to implement those that have even less of a memory footprint than the mods that currently implement them like FAR, TAC Life Support, Deadly Re-Entry, and EVE... (none of which I have the spare memory for in my current install) That's where Squad really needs to show their coding prowess compared to the modders- considering they do this for a living...

Regards,

Northstar

[Eric S]

Hear hear! OP sums things up very well, no wonder there's so much agreement in the replies.

Agreed. While I do like occasionally playing as realistic as possible, it's not something I do consistently because while there are some different and interesting challenges, it isn't inherently fun to me.

The only problem is that the realism required for suspension of disbelief varies greatly from player to player, often because some are far more trained in the actual physics involved.

True, and to make matters worse, it also varies depending on how immersed the person is in the setting. For example, you mention reentry heat. Kerbin reeentry velocities are half to a third that of Earth reentries, so it's not going to be as big an issue if they keep it realistic, where what we believe (based on what we actually see in Earth-based reentries) would actually be less realistic.

- Better aerodynamics. I don't think anyone would look at a pancake rocket in real life and say "That looks like it should fly".

Even as a supporter of asparagus staging, when you get more than one level deep, it starts feeling odd, and yes, the wider than tall pancakes just look wrong, even to me. I'm not sure better aerodynamics is the solution (even with FAR installed, I've done things that shouldn't be able to fly).

- N-body physics. As mentioned above, I think patched conics are close enough to realistic that most people don't find it jarringly inaccurate.

Correct, patched conics are accurate enough for mission-duration time frames unless you're spending a lot of time at low relative velocity out away from planets. The Apollo missions were planned out using patched conics, not N-body physics, and there were no big surprises, but they didn't dilly dally out in the area near where we would consider the SoI transition between the Moon and Earth, which is where N-body physics would differ the most.

RemoteTech-style communications management. I know many players love this mod, and it is a more realistic representation of some of the challenges of spaceflight. But for me, maintaining a satellite network is not overly fun gameplay and it creates modes of failure that can be difficult to anticipate.

This is probably the strongest point. Yes, I play with RT2 more often than not. It makes early probe-based missions a serious pain since we can only control the probe from one place and we don't have the level of automation that even early space missions had. Even later missions can cause me to spend more time setting up communications than doing the mission the communications are supposed to support, if I don't already have a network covering the area of operations. Just having range limits on communications would introduce too many problems, in my opinion, you really need the ability to relay, otherwise your probe landers need the big dishes even during decent, rather than leaving something in orbit to relay between KSC and the lander. That would be easy enough if you don't have to worry about LoS. With LoS (RT2 as is now), doing that involves either specific timing or having multiple satellites instead of just the "orbiter."

So the balance that Squad must find is one that provides good suspension of disbelief for as many of their players as possible while keeping the complexity (both for player and programmer) within reason and the gameplay fun. I don't think it's possible to be completely satisfactory for all players, so it's a tough balance to find.

Realism vs believability vs fun, not an easy balancing act. I trust Squad to find a decent balance for most players, with mods covering those players that don't find the stock balance good enough. I have no delusions that there is any one balance that can satisfy all players. The only measurements of value on any of the balance points that matter about the stock game would be how the balance matches Squad's intention and how much of the players are satisfied with the stock balance. I know better than to claim that I represent the common player, and I haven't felt that most players that claimed to do so really did that well either.

[youkofoxy]

I would not say "believable" I would say plausible.

think of a Hoax that you have read and believed, it's called plausible.

something that is so close to the common sense of reality (and reality itself) that deceives you.

but first, I think the devs should leave at least some thing near the known by most people.

let's see my point of view....

something that bothers me is the size of the planet itself, but that is me.

Now that the "biomes" are more of a white box than a biome is something serious.

by the way, in a white box is easier to find living beings, than in Kerbin.

not to mention that on Mars has found "knobs".

you happened to see "knobs" in Duna?

or strange stones that are apparently chasing you?

I'm never went to Dune, but I know I will not find anything as interressante there.

at least from what I saw in kerbin.

and there is not stations in kerbin from what I can see.

this planet has a beautiful climate stabilizing system.

is so stable that is always perfect to launch a rocket.

Yes I know they will change it, just could not resist making a joke about the fact kerbin have a better environmental control than many laboratories.

else, for me the behavior of engines should be similar to the real engines.

and similiar I say with the same theoretical problems, not equal.

because until now I only see very good engines, which do not fail even in absurd conditions of operation.

in fact, I'm not even going to use more rocket engines in the first stage, I will use jet engines.

among other pretty crazy things in this game, which I really do not know if it's "huehue Br" or a simulator where you have to pay attention to what you are doing.

Note: I used "huehue Br" because I do not know the correct for the type of behavior that the LP has Danny2462 and Thor word.

and in my opinion, one major flaw of the community is unable to reach a common point.

by the way, the deal with ion engines, would be an autopilot and the ability to have two flights at the same time solve the problem.

this would make it possible refueling during flight.

and things like destroy rocket using a fighter plane easier.

and is waiting to see what they (the Develops) have reserved for the end.

until then, all we can do is complain that is not fun, and if not this fun ....

well we buy a game to have fun, or what?

P.S.

for me: good Gameplay is fun gameplay.

then you should see what is fun for you.