How do you feel?

[Bilfr3d]

With the recent KSP .24 update, many good things have come, like the contracts system, budgets, a UI overhaul and a tech tree re-structure. And also the official KSP 64-bit. However, there are also bugs that people seem to be hitting on the 64 and 32 bit versions, and some people don't like everything that has happened with the .24 update. So I'm here to do a poll! Yes, a poll! Don't worry, I'm going to make it anonymous, so vote what you think. Did you like the KSP .24?

[Xavven]

It's a great start, but balancing is in order. That's to be expected of course, but it just isn't the right kind of game yet.

[uui8457]

I absolutely love the new powerful liquid+oxidizer powered RCS engine, I can make VTOLs really easy now!

[Franklin]

Yeah, what Xavven said. Good elements, just need balancing and tweaking. Contracts need to be made more interesting, failure needs to be possible, and proper debris recovery needs consideration.

[Layer23]

I really dislike the contract system to be honest. Instead of having meaningful goals it simply provides arbitrary part tests. It forces one to build contrived rockets that has as many "unnecessary" parts as possible for part testing. I like to play the career mode as realistically as possible, for example no asparagus staging until the very late game (when that sort of technology is available in my opinion). I don't see any reason at all why I should have to test a SRB that is splashed down or one at 70km altitude. Why not have meaningful and realistic small missions? Deploying satellites of various designs at various orbits around Kerbin should be a good way to make money for a private space corporation. Ferrying say 8 rich tourists to one of the two moons and back should also be a great way to make money. Putting a scientific space station that generates science slowly would also be a great mission (compared to ISS where they carry out 0G experiments). I would like to do more stuff like that and not testing weird parts in weird situations that doesn't serve a "real" purpose.

The part I enjoy is the 64-bit client, that's about it.

[Franklin]

Ferrying say 8 rich tourists to one of the two moons and back should also be a great way to make money. Putting a scientific space station that generates science slowly would also be a great mission (compared to ISS where they carry out 0G experiments).

Yeah, these would be far more interesting contracts.

Squad's said they'd never make it so science could be generated over time, though, which I assumed was because you can speed up time. Of course they could always just put science generation on its own clock, unable to be sped up, and that would give space stations an actual function, but meh who knows what'll happen down the road.

[Kerbonautical]

I hate to be so brutally honest, but there's no point in sugar coating it, this has been by far the least interesting update to me and I have to slot myself into the bracket of 'not at all'. I will admit the update never really excited me too much to begin with but I spent about a half hour messing with the contracts and haven't mustered up the drive to go back since. I'm sticking around because I want to keep up with what's coming next but for now KSP will be sitting in my library gathering up dust. And that's not to say it's necessarily a bad thing. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and right now I'm more interested in rigging a HOTAS up and diving into the Elite: Dangerous beta. I definitely need to switch it up for a bit as I'm completely burnt out.

Maybe I will find a reason to come back in time, but I don't play KSP to be given goals, that's not really my type of game. Ideally I like to make my own goals and while KSP still allows it there is very little of anything new for those of us who play this way in the latest update.

[Thomas988]

With a few more bug fixing and balancing tweaks 0.24 will be the perfect update. With this update KSP got a whole new level of depth. Plus, it's a boatload of fun!

I'd love to see even more types of contracts in the future, including asteroid redirect missions.

[Pecan]

Sandbox! KSP is a great game and getting better all the time. Engines almost got sensible (actually I think this rebalance is as good as it's worth getting) :-)

You can do difficult missions in a logical order and progress through the system as your skills and ability improve.

I haven't tried the new tutorials yet so I can't comment on them.

Career? Well, yes, if you don't have any idea what you want to do, I suppose you might as well follow someone else's game ^^.

Science - you're kidding right? Good of Squad to keep it in there for <deleted> the people who need it.

[obi_juan]

I don't see any reason at all why I should have to test a SRB that is splashed down or one at 70km altitude.

Yes I think wit only one test, or two, with one part is enough. Now I don't take more than 1 contract to test one part.

Deploying satellites of various designs at various orbits around Kerbin should be a good way to make money for a private space corporation. Ferrying say 8 rich tourists to one of the two moons and back should also be a great way to make money. Putting a scientific space station that generates science slowly would also be a great mission.

I hope that these missions will be included in the next version of the game.

[Commander Jebidiah]

I really dislike the contract system to be honest. Instead of having meaningful goals it simply provides arbitrary part tests. It forces one to build contrived rockets that has as many "unnecessary" parts as possible for part testing. I like to play the career mode as realistically as possible, for example no asparagus staging until the very late game (when that sort of technology is available in my opinion). I don't see any reason at all why I should have to test a SRB that is splashed down or one at 70km altitude. Why not have meaningful and realistic small missions? Deploying satellites of various designs at various orbits around Kerbin should be a good way to make money for a private space corporation. Ferrying say 8 rich tourists to one of the two moons and back should also be a great way to make money. Putting a scientific space station that generates science slowly would also be a great mission (compared to ISS where they carry out 0G experiments). I would like to do more stuff like that and not testing weird parts in weird situations that doesn't serve a "real" purpose.

The part I enjoy is the 64-bit client, that's about it.

Lucky you.

I've been wanting test part contracts scince i Played .24 career but i dont get any instead i get spammed with plant flag on moon which isn't to bad scince Jeb's stranded there anyway or i get spammeded with rescue kerbal from kerbin orbit. seriously how do kerbals get to space when im the one who launches the rockets.

[Majorjim!]

I really dislike the contract system to be honest. Instead of having meaningful goals it simply provides arbitrary part tests. It forces one to build contrived rockets that has as many "unnecessary" parts as possible for part testing. I like to play the career mode as realistically as possible, for example no asparagus staging until the very late game (when that sort of technology is available in my opinion). I don't see any reason at all why I should have to test a SRB that is splashed down or one at 70km altitude. Why not have meaningful and realistic small missions? Deploying satellites of various designs at various orbits around Kerbin should be a good way to make money for a private space corporation. Ferrying say 8 rich tourists to one of the two moons and back should also be a great way to make money. Putting a scientific space station that generates science slowly would also be a great mission (compared to ISS where they carry out 0G experiments). I would like to do more stuff like that and not testing weird parts in weird situations that doesn't serve a "real" purpose.

The part I enjoy is the 64-bit client, that's about it.

Wait, contracts are only testing parts? Sigh.. Very glad I am a sandboxer.

[Commander Jebidiah]

I hate to be so brutally honest, but there's no point in sugar coating it, this has been by far the least interesting update to me and I have to slot myself into the bracket of 'not at all'. I will admit the update never really excited me too much to begin with but I spent about a half hour messing with the contracts and haven't mustered up the drive to go back since. I'm sticking around because I want to keep up with what's coming next but for now KSP will be sitting in my library gathering up dust. And that's not to say it's necessarily a bad thing. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and right now I'm more interested in rigging a HOTAS up and diving into the Elite: Dangerous beta. I definitely need to switch it up for a bit as I'm completely burnt out.

Maybe I will find a reason to come back in time, but I don't play KSP to be given goals, that's not really my type of game. Ideally I like to make my own goals and while KSP still allows it there is very little of anything new for those of us who play this way in the latest update.

I'm obviously the oppisite of you the because this is the update that got me interested in science. I'd play with it in .22-.23.5 but never enjoyed it but i like managing a budget cause it reminds me of simcity DS and 4 two very good games I might add.

[regex]

Deploying satellites of various designs at various orbits around Kerbin should be a good way to make money for a private space corporation. Ferrying say 8 rich tourists to one of the two moons and back should also be a great way to make money.

How is this any different than, say, testing an engine in orbit around a moon? The fact that you have a few extra Kerbals along? The game doled out a random collection of parts arranged to look like a satellite and wants you to put them into orbit? Big deal. They both involve putting an arbitrary ship into orbit; at the end of the day you're going to get just as sick of that as you are of testing parts.

Yes, there are better ways to do contracts but "more of the same" isn't the way.

E:

Wait, contracts are only testing parts? Sigh.. Very glad I am a sandboxer.

There are a few different contract types such as rescuing Kerbals or exploring but, yes, the majority seem to be part testing in various situations.

Edited July 24, 2014 by regex

[Bilfr3d]

this took off a lot better than i expected. Anyway, time to add my comment. Overall, the update was pretty good, although i would'nt say great. There are still some bugs, especially in ksp 64-bit, and the contracts and budgets system has a few holes and plenty work arounds to get (just about) unlimited funds. Those silly decimal points in the VAB for the rocket cost and the total funds not having decimal points... it really messes my mind sometimes.

[SkyRender]

The addition of significant new features always bumps my interest of a release up by a bit over the aesthetic- and fix-only releases, I will admit. While I doubt any release is going to top 0.18 in terms of sheer scale of how much got changed, 0.24 is certainly a good step in that direction. The new systems need some balancing and TLC, I won't argue that, but for what they are right now, I'm alright with them. They don't really affect my play style at all, other than to actually give me some incentive to keep playing past maxing out the tech tree (which lately takes all of two launches and never takes me outside of Kerbin's SoI).

[Renegrade]

It's a great start, but balancing is in order. That's to be expected of course, but it just isn't the right kind of game yet.

^ this is exactly how I feel as well.

I'm cool with that taking time though.

[Jon Tash]

I voted "Sort of" because I'm really not as trilled as I expected to be for this update. The contracts aren't as good as I expected. I have been playing Mission Controller Extended mod for a long time and I got to say, the mod is better than what Squad came with.

With the mod you have a sense of accomplishment, you know what the next mission will be but you cannot do it unless you finish the previous mission. With the contract from Squad, you get a bunch of test contract that makes no sense, random rescues that also make no sense and depending of what you did in your save you have some exploration contracts, science contracts that give you almost to no science points and some random contracts to plant flags. This last contract is only there so the flag system of the game is used by the way.

When you finish the tech tree there is no more point to continue (which was already the case in the previous updates, but turned the game basically in sandbox mod). Sure the contracts system add stuff to do, some of them are fun, other like the test contracts or the rescue contract aren't really great. And to be frankly I don't do test contracts anymore, too boring and it makes no sense in doing them.

Right now, it's too early to criticize the contract system, I hope Squad will continue developing this part of the game and make like Harvester always said he liked it to be, Tycoon. Shape more the economy, the science and the recruiting part of the game so that those 3 work together as one big system, like a Tycoon sort of game.

In the mean time I'm sure the modders out there will figure out a way to make the game better than it already is.

[Lysergic]

Like many others, I'm not a fan of part testing contracts. Or rescue Kerbal contracts. Or plant flag contracts.

I do, however, very much enjoy the non-procedural contracts. The ones requiring you to land on moons and planets. Coupled with the Funds that you need, it means that I have defined goals, and defined budgets. It adds a lay of complexity and difficulty that the game lacked before. But I could easily lose those other contracts.

[O-Doc]

To be honest, I played as far in 0.24 as I did in 0.23. That was to get almost all the way through the tech tree and only just be at the point where I'm exploring Mun. I feel I've lost interest in continuing already. Having said that, I'm a sandbox player and I knew this was a sandbox game when I bought it. I'm playing my 0.23.5 installs because career in 0.24 has already gotten stale even though I play pretty hardcore with no quicksaves and launch no reverts. Yet, still no kerbals have died, no craft have been lost and I'm sitting on 2 million kerbucks.

The bugs are also somewhat of an irritance but, from that I can see a lot of work has been done re-doing how the interface layer has re-coded in relation to the physics layer. 0.22 was bug-free for me and they were introduced in 0.23 with camera rotation while part is right-click selected. That's the point where the interface got 'sticky'. They've now been compounded with new interface elements put in. I won't judge an alpha game for its bug, SQUAD has to move the development forward and these growing pains are expected.

I would like to see some strategy introduced into the game that gives the player an overall arch to their gameplay, preferably with a win condition. Since buying KSP I've been toying around with a few mod ideas that would make this game very replayable. The first is to have persistant missions that would require satellites, stations and bases to be created and maintained(at cost) to fulfill agency objectives while getting money from contracts to funds these projects. The other is more RTS style resource/exploration race with an NPC agency. You would choose your expertise by selecting and training staff in your agency and build to your training/technology strengths(or even do deals with part manufacturers) to out compete the computer, or other players. Obviously no small task to develop.

[Oafman]

I must admit that I have zero interest in accepting any of the contracts I have been offered or read about. I honestly think that, for anyone who has got to grips with how this game works to even a basic degree, there is no significant challenge and therefore no real enjoyment to be taken from contracts like these.

Whether it's firing a rocket at a certain altitude, or RVing in LKO, there doesn't seem to be anything on offer that is not entirely routine. As others have said, putting heavy payloads into specific and unusual orbits, or something like docking a lab to a hitchiker on the surface of Tylo, would present you with something out of the ordinary, which you might not have done many times before. Perhaps this is the direction Squad will take things, but I'm afraid that until they do, I'm still setting my own objectives.

Beyond contracts, there is very little in this update. A slight UI improvement I suppose, and a couple of new parts which are welcome. I had a troubled time with the bugs in 64 bit, so will wait for those to be ironed out before switching up from 32 bit.

I don't wish to sound grumpy; I love this game. I just don't love it now any more than I did with .235

[TheFactory]

I can't lie, totally underwhelmed by the contract system too I thought I would love it but I just can't enjoy the procedural parts testing contracts at all. I like the explore contracts, but the rescue kerbal contracts are ridiculous - I want to see real space missions!!!

All the procedurally generated text is too difficult to read and is ignored by everyone, I think it would be better to just sit down an write 500 - 1000 individual contracts, yes it will take time but it will be worth it.

Squad perhaps could think of a way to spawn markers on a surface, then these are places you need to land and perhaps drive a rover to another flag. Explore anomalies contracts, study specific area etc.

The UI refresh is great, but I can't help but think that squad are not listening to the community on certain things, why is the navball still not on screen when you go into map mode? Why do you still have to press G twice to deploy your legs the first time? No worries though we have random kerbals to rescue from orbit eh Squad!?

The only thing that bothers me is I have read that Squad is aiming for scope completion by the end of the year, judging by how long it took to get this update out I can't imagine they can get that much done by the end of the year and content wise, I think its still way off the mark.

[montyben101]

I really dislike the contract system to be honest. Instead of having meaningful goals it simply provides arbitrary part tests. It forces one to build contrived rockets that has as many "unnecessary" parts as possible for part testing. I like to play the career mode as realistically as possible, for example no asparagus staging until the very late game (when that sort of technology is available in my opinion). I don't see any reason at all why I should have to test a SRB that is splashed down or one at 70km altitude. Why not have meaningful and realistic small missions? Deploying satellites of various designs at various orbits around Kerbin should be a good way to make money for a private space corporation. Ferrying say 8 rich tourists to one of the two moons and back should also be a great way to make money. Putting a scientific space station that generates science slowly would also be a great mission (compared to ISS where they carry out 0G experiments). I would like to do more stuff like that and not testing weird parts in weird situations that doesn't serve a "real" purpose.

The part I enjoy is the 64-bit client, that's about it.

Couldn't agree more, in fact when I heard "contract" I though that you would be asked to put satilites into orbit or orbit the moon, not do stupid tests of parts which is why I will always play sandbox

Edit: one thing i do like about the update though is that KSP now recognizes gimbals on one part and also in groups so now rotating a rocket is better/possible without winglets (eg: a single RAPIER can now rotate a plane)

Edited July 24, 2014 by montyben101

[CalculusWarrior]

I quite like the contract system, myself. I find that the 'big' contracts which give the majority of the monetary reward tend to align with my goals (like going to the Mun, Minmus, etc). Thus, I'm not forced to endlessly test parts for hours just so I can scrape enough money together to go to space. Speaking of testing parts, while the altitudes and speeds at which those parts must be tested at can often times be a little strange, I enjoy building 'test aircraft' that I strap the parts onto and try them out, like in real life. As such, my tech tree is now a lot more plane-focused, compared to other playthroughs.

All in all, this was a very good update, though if I begin to find contracts unreasonable and tiring later on in the tech tree, there will always be Sandbox mode!

[Mister Spock]

From the perspective of a new player like me, the contract system is pretty cool. I actually like testing stuff I've never used before. I had no idea what an LV-1 engine was until I had a contract to test one. And yeah, the bigger contracts align with my bigger goals, like getting to the Mun. I also like the financial pressure on me. I played in 3.25 a little, in science mode, and I just sent up whatever huge rocket I could put together. Now I find myself pinching pennies. I fail quite a bit, and I generally refrain from reverting or reloading, so I'm not swimming in money -- I just completed a test contract that brought me to 150,000 roots, but before that I was at 80,000 and dwindling. I've never done an orbital rendez-vous, and that's probably what I'll try next, though I'm not sure how to go about it.

But sure, I'd like to see a wider variety of contracts. Also, if I were the devs, I'd consider adding some UI element to sort offered contracts by type -- testing contracts, plant-flag contracts, rescue contracts, etc.