A little .24 feedback

[Rezolution]

First off, let me say that overall I am very pleased with the .24 update and feel that it has added a great deal of depth to the overall Kerbal experience.

With that said, I have a few small, constructive criticisms that I would like to put out there. Please let me know if anyone else agrees or disagrees.

1. Lost in translation: I know this doesn't really impact the gameplay of .24, but I am curious why the contract descriptions are, at times, almost unintelligible. It is not so much bad writing that is to blame, rather it seems more as if the paragraphs were written in another language and put through a translator program. The syntax is odd and words are in places that just don't make sense. Is this caused by a random descriptor generator? If not, I'm sure you could find a fledgling writer to work for next to nothing to at least polish the entries before submission (ahem, cough, cough, ahem). Everything else in the game and on the forum is written well by the devs, which is why I am so perplexed.

2. Landing Gear: This isn't really a critique specific to .24, but I am still wondering why jet engines, wings, fins, winglets, intakes, and the Mk 1 Command Pod are all unlocked (at least for me) before the wheeled landing gear. I was given a contract to test the jet engine and I had to make a VTOL with LT-1 landing struts (looked somewhat like the Pogo plane from real life) in order to make something that would get off the ground and land again in one piece, which doesn't seem to flow logically.

3. Hardcore mode/too much money? I just found out this morning that a hardcore mode was available as an option, but I definitely think implementing this option in a more obvious way might be a good idea. I've actually never reached a point where I was low on funds (but I do use the revert option quite a bit; I know that makes it easier but it's just so hard not to!). Maybe varying difficulty modes could be implemented, but so far I feel the challenge could be a little greater, at least for those who have been playing Kerbal for a while.

4. Probes/unmanned flight: I still don't see much use for the probes/satellites in the game. Would it be possible, perhaps, to start out by requiring the player to send unmanned flights into space first before unlocking the capsules? This would more accurately mirror a real life space program progression system and give purpose to those oft unused probe pieces (at least for me).

That's about it so far. I know this is the early version of the contracts system (the first in fact!) and more tweaks are, I bet, on the way. Thank you for a great update and I look forward to my continued .24 experiences as well as future iterations.

Thanks for reading!

Edited July 20, 2014 by Rezolution

[morph113]

1. I think it is like that because the test contracts are more or less completely random. So it goes something like "insert random engine" or "insert random part", "insert random flight condition", "insert random height condition" etc. so that's why the grammar might be a bit off sometimes. Only the unique missions like landin on Mun, reaching orbit etc. are completely handwritten and correct. I guess they will fix it in the future.

2. Yes I agree about that

3. I personally think the new options for perma death and deactivating the revert to and quicksaves/loads is a good first step. But yeah they could maybe add those at the beginning of the career to choose different career settings which you cannot change after you have started the career. I suppose they will eventually add such career settings. I used to use the "revert to" and quicksave features quiet often before, but I guess it was more a convenience before. But now with funds, it makes total sense to be able to lose rockets and money. Reverting back to launch feels like cheating now to me because otherwise you would never lose any money at all.

4. That's something for you if you activate the perma kerbal death. So before sending out valuable Kerbals like Jeb & Co to their doom with an untested rocket. You can test the rocket remote controlled. But I agree there aren't much practical advantages yet for satellites or probes, well at least not without mods. It's different with mods of course. But I agree that it would probably be nice to have to tech tree changed so that the command pods will be unlocked later in the tree.

[dryer_lint]

1. Yeah, it's basically a random phrase generator... you'll find that a lot of them just say stuff like, "we don't know what to do next"

2. I agree so much with this. Unlocked all the jet engines and wings only to find that landing gear was a whole separate category. So annoying.

3. It is pretty easy to get surplus money, as others have mentioned. I kind of like it this way, personally

4. I think there a mod for this, "Better Than Starting Manned". But that's not the Kerbal way! Who needs safety! Blast us to the stars!

[Hyomoto]

1. HarvestR said specifically that the descriptions are 'procedural' and sometimes may actually make sense. I'm pretty sure they know they are goofy, and maybe they'll do a bit of work on them at some time in the future.

2. As for landing gear, the node you are talking about is aerodynamics, and the wheels are in survivability I think. So your complaint is really that you can build an entire plane SANS wheels with one node, and perhaps it would be smarter to push the pieces into proper categories or just shove wheels in with the rest of them. Personally I agree, why is a jet engine in with wings instead of engines? Honestly, the tech tree isn't perfect (far from it) but everyone has a different idea of how it should progress. To keep this response short, it seemed like the original plan was to have you unlock nodes with science and then purchase pieces you could then use to build craft in the VAB. I still think that's a more logical method and would actually tie in well with funds but I'll save that for another post.

3. Funds are far from balanced, and revert basically removes any real Kerbal-related pay issues. For now, if you want that same challenge you just have to fight the urge to revert. Keep in mind, however, that if you need to repair a ship because you did something dumb pre-launch, the recovery is 100% anyways so revert to VAB isn't a big issue under those circumstances.

4. As people have mentioned, there are reasons to send unmanned but it's mostly personal preference. The major issue is simply that it is cheaper to send a Kerbal on any mission, and more lucrative. Probes require a constant intake of electricity, Kerbals require nothing. Probes cannot do crew or EVA reports, collect data from science modules or repair broken parts. THIS is why probes have no purpose. If Kerbals required life-support, it's very likely solar panels and batteries would be a very attractive alternative. Restricting the player to unmanned missions first is not really the issue, because it doesn't address why the player is sending Kerbals to begin with.

[Rus-Evo]

The language is a bit tricky. I was a bit flumoxed by "test engine landed at kerbin". Engines arent normally fired on land except off the pad, and I thought "landed" was a word used after you had flown, not before.

Of course that was the easiest test ever in the end, just point the rocket towards earth, quickly do a quick burn then recover all funds!

As for probes, in the early days of spaceflight, the humans were probably superior to early electronics.