Things to do on the surface.

[L3GO]

I mostly stay on kerbin when i can and build things that others wouldn't like a Rcs 747 ish looking plane that flies like a dream or a plane that can take 3 rovers and explore the many sights to see.

[Kowgan]

What Tw1 said. I think what can maximize the whole KSP experience is your imagination.

Roleplaying is a great part in this game, and one of the biggest reasons it hooked me up to it so hardly. The hours spent looking for a game - mostly MMOs - that handle me the Possibility to do whatever my imagination allows are countless. And in a way, KSP handle that to us very well.

Remember to enjoy the small things. In all those planet visits, how many times did you wait for a sunset? Is the temperature colder when it's night? How many times did you enjoy a sunrise, without time warp, and took notes of how many minutes the sun took to show up completely? And, hell, took a picture to bring back home, of course? And, well, are you completely sure this planet has no life form at all?

What about the air? How funny is the atmosphere where you landed? Does the dust on the air moves weirdly when you shake your hand in front of you? Does the same thing happens 10km away from where you landed?

That dust went inside your fuel engines. Did it damage it? Will you have to spend hours, days or weeks to fully repair it?

As Scott Manley told us in one of his videos, the ships that go to Duna can't go back home, due to Duna's high radiation. How are you supposed to deal with it?

Remember, it's a different PLANET! Everything is supposed to look different and completely new! In no way you can see everything in two or five minutes.

Stop underestimating your trips. Start making extraplanetary plans, to fit your extraplanetary trip!

As Tw1 said above, those experiments take time, don't they? There should be a lot of experiments to do! You're supposed to spend weeks, usually months at those planets' surfaces, and full of jobs to complete.

By the way, Koka-Kola paid us some millions to record a few scenes in Duna for their new TV advertisement. Thing is, Jeb is no actor, and that'll take a while to make him do the perfect expressions at the right jump...

Sorry if I sound too poetic about it. But all of this is just my humble opinion, and as part of it, I think this is what the game is about. It isn't supposed to be played as a "get the biggest ammount of science the faster you can" game, IF you don't want to play it like this. So you can find lots of things to do at any surface.

Edited August 21, 2014 by Kowgan

[juanml82]

Notable terrain features like mountaintops and crater rims, to look at the scenery and see what the vehicle is capable of. True, the scenery doesn't tend to look *that* interesting up close.

For me just my science program takes a bit of time, with at least two runs for most experiments (transmit one, return one) including the surface sample, and timewarping to recharge the batteries for transmission. Then there's positioning the Kerbals for the photo-op. Even if I don't go anywhere I've already done a bit.

The problem with rovers is that they are slow and prone to tipping over. So you can't use them, too much, for sight seeing. The alternative are planes or small landers with ions or 909s, which need to be refueled. I haven't tried setting up a resource extraction/refueling rig anywhere other than Minmus yet, though, but it sounds like a viable approach. Without in site refueling, local travel relies on fuel ferried all the way from Kerbin.

Just landing is usually boring. Hop out, pick up a sample, plant a flag and you're done. Except if you need to work around design defficiencies of your lander, such as that one time when I landed on Tylo and found my Kerbal unable to reach the ladder or get into the capsule which was enclosed in the middle of asparagus-staged return module. I had to stage two times and then climb up the landing leg to get there. Fortunately even after losing two stages the ship was still able to return to orbit. And there were more such adventurous moments in my landings.

Botched missions always end up being the funnier

[Renegrade]

But C is currently not that well encouraged, (IMHO).

We're in definite agreement there, even if we might have differing opinions regarding tech trees and progress and such.

Regarding A though - I like how the tech tree limits you (somewhat, please see essay on how 'tech tree is badly designed easy-mode junk') -- I always get a chuckle about how people are "I can't do X, I don't have nukes yet". A tier 5/6 Moho manned landing and return is far more challenging, interesting, rewarding, and impressive WITHOUT NTRs.

I had always hoped science would be more like the exploration in WWi Sport resort, with lots of things to see and record, and a nice map thing to show your data:

http://ken.duisenberg.com/WiiSportsResortFlyoverNumberedMap.jpg

Like this, but for a planet. They wouldn't have to be things like the anomalies, just interesting terrain features, more thorough than 'biomes'.

It is possible that something like this could still be added on top of the biome system.

I don't own a Wii (and try to avoid them when possible, and in fact I'm kinda anti-console these days), so I can only kinda guess what that is based on the picture and description, but from what I'm gathering, it sounds like a very good idea for KSP.

How I see your concept working is that you would orbit a planet, identify vague regions that have points of interest in them (ex, "Jeb, we're picking up some strange readings in the southwest quadrant of that crater.. can you land and take a look?" or "That's an interesting valley, we'd love some soil samples from it's floor" or somesuch), land in those areas and then explore about. Once you'd found and examined the point of interest, you'd gain science and it would be noted on your map.. is that correct?

However, I'm not too sure if Squad could do that. It would be a lot more labor-intensive than biomes, and yet we only have biomes for three of the .. uhh... 17? planets/muns/etc.

Anyhow, it sounds like a great idea to me, and if they can pull it off, it would certainly enrich the KSP experience in a good way.

[juanml82]

I don't own a Wii (and try to avoid them when possible, and in fact I'm kinda anti-console these days), so I can only kinda guess what that is based on the picture and description, but from what I'm gathering, it sounds like a very good idea for KSP.

How I see your concept working is that you would orbit a planet, identify vague regions that have points of interest in them (ex, "Jeb, we're picking up some strange readings in the southwest quadrant of that crater.. can you land and take a look?" or "That's an interesting valley, we'd love some soil samples from it's floor" or somesuch), land in those areas and then explore about. Once you'd found and examined the point of interest, you'd gain science and it would be noted on your map.. is that correct?

However, I'm not too sure if Squad could do that. It would be a lot more labor-intensive than biomes, and yet we only have biomes for three of the .. uhh... 17? planets/muns/etc.

Anyhow, it sounds like a great idea to me, and if they can pull it off, it would certainly enrich the KSP experience in a good way.

But how much extra fuel are you carrying? If fuel requirements fall, reaching distant planets is less challenging. But if reaching them remains challenging, then you won't have too much spare fuel for several landings.

Resource extraction can help with that - mine ice water to turn it into LOX with power from a nuclear for instance - that already exists through mods. I was also thinking about changing the LV-N so they use the fuel they are supposed to use instead of sharing it with chemical rockets - but Nervas use liquid hydrogen which we should assume is the fuel the chemical engines use.

Of course, fuel efficiency can be a challenge in itself. A multi ship mission to Jool or Duna might require a single small vessel with useful ions to return with the science while the rest of the kerbonauts are there to stay, as the fuel needed to return is better employed exploring the system now that they are there

[Random Tank]

I had an idea that could help with this:

Currently, most equipment will award 80-90% of the total science availible for a biome in one experiment... My idea is this is made a lot lower; for things such as the mat lab or goo container, the 1st experiment gives 40%, 2nd 30%, 3rd 15%, 4th 10% and 5th 5% (though only on the surface); with the gravity scanner and seismometer it would require 3 experiments to max the science; and the barometer, thermometer and atmospheric analyser nosecose would be 2 times.

But then there's this: when you run an experiment for the first time, it will gather results for that area, meaning this area's science has now been obtained; to get the another experiment you have to move to somewhere else in that biome. The size of each area would be depending on the size of the biome; on Eve you could have to travel 10km to do another experiment, but on the flats of Minmus it would be less than 1km. This is basically like sub biomes, but due to the much shorter distances it would be worth flying/driving/walking to them rather than just doing another landing. This would also encourage and improve usage of the MPL, as if you are going to 3 close together biomes on the mum are you really going to bring 15 mat labs and goo pods?