Any reason why KSP is mainly piloted space exploration?

[USAGuerrilla]

Usually tech develops:

1) automatic control (1st lousy then it gets better)

2) animals (to make sure people don't die)

3) humans

repeat 1 and 3 (2 can be omitted) for every next stage (moon, etc).

Also cooms are funny in this game. I made a automatically controlled vehicle and it looses control on the other side of the planet. I couldn't find any stock parts to fix this. Is this a planned feature for future releases?

[FenrirWolf]

comms isnt a thing in stock ksp. what's more likely is that the probe ran out of power.

and Kerbals are too excited about going to space to do silly things like "test launches."

though on a more serious note it hearkens back to the original versions of the game when it was less ambitious in scope. in those days you had only a few parts and one 3-man capsule. though the game has grown since then manned flight is more or less a core aspect of the game that's been there from the beginning.

Edited May 31, 2014 by FenrirWolf

[Tortoise]

That's the player's preference. I always send unmanned probes somewhere that I've never been, before I go.

And due to antenna range mods, I require myself to have a satellite around each place I go anyways.

And also your probe probably lost power because you lack solar panels?

[Death Engineering]

If you're not against trying a modded KSP, Better Than Starting Manned may be what you seek.

"What is BTSM?" From the BTSM thread:

"BTSM is a part and progression balance mod which overhauls Kerbal Space Program's career mode in order to create a meaningful gameplay experience out of it, rather than the new player tutorial that Squad intended. It focuses on slow and challenging progress as you move upwards in technology in order to increase the overall satisfaction of things like first attaining orbit, and first setting foot on the Mun."

[SofusRud]

Ask yourself: what sounds better, "Commander Jebediah Kerman, has landed on Duna" or "Bleep-Blorp the trashcan has landed on duna"?

[USAGuerrilla]

I like both manned and unmanned exploration they have their own challenges. But manned 1st is irresponsible towards astronauts.

One thing with com mods I saw is that they require satellites everywhere instead of large dishes on main planet or several large comm satellites orbiting it. We don't send com satellites to mars before sending 1st probe there. Probes can talk over long distance. Maybe I misunderstood though.

About battery, don't they have solar panels? I think you can use those. Also deep space exploration use nuclear batteries (like latest NASA mars rover, but it started ages ago, USSR used to have beacons in North Sea which had those kinds of batteries).

Was hoping to make lunar lander with the automatic stage to return experiments data back home.

P.S. I do use mods sometimes.

Edited May 31, 2014 by USAGuerrilla

[Pecan]

1. It's a sandbox game - if you want to do manned first you can. If you want to do unmanned first you can. If you want to play by career-mode's current silly rules you can.

2. Probes might be able to talk over a long distance but radio waves find it hard to travel through planets. Hence, if you want to be able to communicate with something in the 'radio shadow' of another body you need repeater satellites. RemoteTech 2 (probably the best-known communications mod) simulates a coverage 'cone' so if you aim a dish at, say, Duna its arc will cover most probes around it - but not the ones it can't "see" because they're behind the planet.

3. Batteries don't have solar panels. Solar panels don't have batteries. You need both - and you need to make sure you i) deploy solar panels unless they're the always-deployed OX-STAT ones, ii) orientate the vehicle so the solar panels get proper exposure to the sun.

4. A radioactive generator is available under the 'utilities' tab in the VAB/SPH.

5. SCANSat is another great probe-mod; that one adding mapping satellites. If used with RT2 you'll need to start with COMSats so you can control things, as above, following with SCANSats to identify safe and/or interesting landing sites. No animals on Kerbin so you'll then have to jump to manned ^^.

6. Career-mode is very much unfinished but should make a lot more sense in 0.24.

[DJEN]

Let's not forget about those damned absent fuel cells.

- - - Updated - - -

I like both manned and unmanned exploration they have their own challenges. But manned 1st is irresponsible towards astronauts.

One thing with com mods I saw is that they require satellites everywhere instead of large dishes on main planet or several large comm satellites orbiting it. We don't send com satellites to mars before sending 1st probe there. Probes can talk over long distance. Maybe I misunderstood though.

About battery, don't they have solar panels? I think you can use those. Also deep space exploration use nuclear batteries (like latest NASA mars rover, but it started ages ago, USSR used to have beacons in North Sea which had those kinds of batteries).

Was hoping to make lunar lander with the automatic stage to return experiments data back home.

P.S. I do use mods sometimes.

Play orbiter instead.

[cantab]

Currently Kerbals don't require life support, while probe cores do require electricity to function. Therefore manned missions are simpler, and since the tech tree in career is meant to introduce players to game elements gradually, they come first.

As for sandbox play, well there are no costs to either failure or over-engineering. If you consider your main goal to land Kerbals somewhere, there's no penalty in just going straight for the manned mission. The main reasons to send an unmanned mission are if it's your main goal (and not just a rehearsal for a manned mission), or if you're trying to avoid both quickloading and killing Kerbals (like I do in my current playthrough).

[comham]

Realism is overrated and probes don't have soul.

[godefroi]

If you're not against trying a modded KSP, Better Than Starting Manned may be what you seek.

Note that for a new player, BTSM is likely to be an extremely difficult challenge. I consider myself a reasonably skilled player, I've done Jool-5 twice, and BTSM is a difficult challenge for me.

[_Aramchek_]

Because it's a game and supposed to be fun, and piloting ships is fun.

[USAGuerrilla]

Currently Kerbals don't require life support, while probe cores do require electricity to function. Therefore manned missions are simpler, and since the tech tree in career is meant to introduce players to game elements gradually, they come first.

That's a good explanation! Thank you! Well I hope they add more AI related stuff and life support later (at least as an option). Well I did buy 2 copies of a game to support those awesome guys who make the game.

[USAGuerrilla]

Realism is overrated and probes don't have soul.

Same as computer playing chess is bad as it's not human. One can think it was built by worms or other computers.

[NovaSilisko]

My personal opinion is that, if unmanned stuff came first, putting your first fragile, terrified, failure-prone kerbal into orbit would be much more rewarding after having gone through unmanned tests first, working your way up to the accomplishment.

Play orbiter instead.

God forbid someone wants something different than you, rite? Besides, Orbiter doesn't have any of those things without mods anyway, so...

Because it's a game and supposed to be fun, and piloting ships is fun.

Not everyone's definition of fun aligns with your own. I think it's quite clear the OP would find it more fun himself to have unmanned things...

Edited June 1, 2014 by NovaSilisko

[Tw1]

I believe it reflects their gung-ho attitude towards space exploration. If they're enthusiastic, risk taking, and don't yet fully understand most spaceflight concepts, (like many beginner players), then making a machine to do the things they want to do themselves might seem a waste of time.

Plus, the way the tech tree works in the stock game requires crew reports in order to get things started.

At the moment, there's not a lot of advantages for probes over kerbals, apart from mass of crew pods, and not needing to return them.

[magnemoe]

Manned missions give more science return, both the eva report and sample return , pod observations can be done unmanned but require an pod.

You also have the benefit of reusing most instruments and move lab and goo measurements to the pod so you can drop them to save weight.

Then I started with KSP I udes far more probes as it was no science and the risks was far higher because of less experience

[Clockwork13]

Ask yourself: what sounds better, "Commander Jebediah Kerman, has landed on Duna" or "Bleep-Blorp the trashcan has landed on duna"?

You just made my day

[USAGuerrilla]

EVA IS BLOODY AWFUL IN THIS GAME!

1) No tether.

2) Extremely sensitive (small adjustments cause astronaut to bounce away from the ship at a very high speed).

3) Extremely powerful.

Hop it's fixed in the future. Tried to practice moving experiments from labs to science module (use stairs) and got disconnected and it took me a lot of time to get back.

[Boris_T_Roach]

The reason is simple

Unmanned probes dont smile as they plummet towards the mun at 500 m/sec, all my manned probes looked like they were thinking "Cool, we're gonna be the first Kerbals on the mun, although we are coming in a touch too fas<BOOM>

Boris

[USAGuerrilla]

The reason is simple

Unmanned probes dont smile as they plummet towards the mun at 500 m/sec, all my manned probes looked like they were thinking "Cool, we're gonna be the first Kerbals on the mun, although we are coming in a touch too fas<boom>

Boris

I have no idea what are you trying to say. When probe lands lots of people are happy as well only in mission control. Anyway I like probes and manned missions and that's IMHO. Some people like manned missions only and that's their opinion. Both have right to exist and both groups of people should be able to enjoy the game.

</boom>

[USAGuerrilla]

Plus people at mission control/engineers/scientists/etc, who didn't fly but made this flight happen, have more reason to smile when anything flies and lands as their contribution is more considerable.

[Concentric]

I have no idea what are you trying to say. When probe lands lots of people are happy as well only in mission control.

What he's saying is that we, the players, have an indication of the pilots' feelings in a manned mission, due to that little window in the corner of the screen. With a probe, you don't get that. We have no insight into mission control, because we are mission control.

[Liowen]

EVA IS BLOODY AWFUL IN THIS GAME!

1) No tether.

2) Extremely sensitive (small adjustments cause astronaut to bounce away from the ship at a very high speed).

3) Extremely powerful.

Hop it's fixed in the future. Tried to practice moving experiments from labs to science module (use stairs) and got disconnected and it took me a lot of time to get back.

One thing you might want to use on EVA is Cap lock to turn on fine controls for EVA's, it reduces the power of those packs (at least to me it makes the pack extremely sluggish). Really EVA should only need short puffs to move around, if you are bouncing off the craft at a high rate of speed you may need to do a tap of key and not hold it down.

I have long thought there should be animal testers before sending a Kerbal into space, however I know this might upset a few people and can understand why it will never be put into game. As for some claiming that probes serve no function is basing it on how they play the game, and there is more than one way to play the game. You can make probes useful without modes by setting certain rules for yourself; cannot land on a body before you send a probe there, make the probe only able to send certain amount science back and the rest you have to collect the rest. I am not taking anything away from using mods to make it harder, however for those that are against modding this would be a viable option for a more challenge.

Edited June 1, 2014 by Liowen

[karolus10]

I would actually love to see programmable flight computers (also enhancing existing staging stack and action groups into one system) so you could design executable commands run by ships, probes and rovers (this could also made signal delay an feasible idea). If anyone here remember Colo-bot will probably know what I mean.

As much as this feature could be incredible, I think that it's way out of game scope and implementation would take more time than it would be worth it.

Also I would not mind to start career with basic unmanned probe and half meter (probe size) rocket parts that would be used to teach basics of rocketery(and not making reaching orbit easy when you start with sounding rockets) as well as give the player set of simple parts that would be logic origin of all parts in KSP, like fuel tanks, liquid rocket engines and thrusters and rockets with solid propellant.

Also I see beneficial having regular jet engine technology (or even propeller) so player could advance and start with manned planes even before reaching space with first crewed mission.

Edited June 1, 2014 by karolus10