Opinions on "Kerbal Experience"

[FleetAdmiralJ]

You can tell me all you want that an experienced pilot flies better than a rookie, but as long as the commands are given by ME, they are effectively flying just as well as I can, and therefore the buff is magic.

OK, so you are in a two-seater plane. You are in the back seat giving directions, with the pilot in the front seat. You fly in the plane twice: one with a rookie pilot and one with a veteran pilot. While flying you give each pilot a set of identical, precise directions on how to fly the plane.

Are you saying that literally the rookie pilot would fly the plane no differently than the veteran pilot, with no variations ever?

Now, Would you mind telling me how a pilot can escape physics? Refer to this:

Sorry, captain: this is nonsense. It is not an abstraction for anything. If you take a spacecraft of a given mass, with a given engine, and perform a burn of a given duration in a given point in its orbit, you can only have ONE resulting orbit. You can't argue with that: it is a fact. Any game mechanic that breaks this fact is also breaking physics: period.

Bill and Jeb are flying the same craft in the same direction with the same orders. Jeb is an awesome pilot and can keep the ship straight like an arrow during the burn. Bill is not so adept at steering and he wobbles here and there during the burn. Bill burns more fuel doing the same burn as Jeb.

[Shuttle]

OK, here is what I think of traits:

reducing heat generation - NO!!!

boosting thrust - NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

increasing fuel efficiency - NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

boosting science output - I can live with that

Why? Two reasons:

1. Pilot can't increase ISP or thrust no matter how skilled he is

2. KSP is a game about sharing your experience with others. There are 96,630 posts in Spacecraft exchange forum. If you implement Kerbal Exp system as is, players won't be able to share crafts from the career because ship performance will depend on pilot. Ships made for sandbox will also be useless in career mode

I vote "no". Please, don't turn KSP into Call of Duty.

[BudgetHedgehog]

Bill and Jeb are flying the same craft in the same direction with the same orders. Jeb is an awesome pilot and can keep the ship straight like an arrow during the burn. Bill is not so adept at steering and he wobbles here and there during the burn. Bill burns more fuel doing the same burn as Jeb.

Ok, so Bill engages SAS (which isn't controlled by a kerbal and is literally powered by the laws of physics) and now the ship stays pointing at the same place while Bill takes his hands off the (curiously absent) flight stick.

[Ippo]

OK, so you are in a two-seater plane. You are in the back seat giving directions, with the pilot in the front seat. You fly in the plane twice: one with a rookie pilot and one with a veteran pilot. While flying you give each pilot a set of identical, precise directions on how to fly the plane.

Are you saying that literally the rookie pilot would fly the plane no differently than the veteran pilot, with no variations ever?

But that's not how KSP works: you don't give them directions and they try to follow your instructions, you are piloting the ship.

And you are going to answer that this is an abstraction for the fact that you give them orders and execute them, but I will reply again with what I said earlier: this does in fact break physics. Even if Bob is not as accurate as Jeb at following my commands, this won't ever - ever - justify a different thrust or Isp.

So basically the point is that when you fly, you are playing the role of the pilot: you are not a disembodied entity giving directions to the kerbal, you are the kerbal. And if you can't follow your own directions, well, you have some other problems.

EDIT:

Bill and Jeb are flying the same craft in the same direction with the same orders. Jeb is an awesome pilot and can keep the ship straight like an arrow during the burn. Bill is not so adept at steering and he wobbles here and there during the burn. Bill burns more fuel doing the same burn as Jeb.

Neither of them would actually be in direct control of the craft, as noted by ObsessedWithKSP. And why does the engine consume more fuel per second when Bill is piloting? Literally: you just turn you engine on, you don't care about the direction: Bill will consume more fuel than Jeb. Why? He's not as good at "throttle up and wait for the fuel to finish"?

Edited October 22, 2014 by Ippo

[Franklin]

OK, so you are in a two-seater plane. You are in the back seat giving directions, with the pilot in the front seat. You fly in the plane twice: one with a rookie pilot and one with a veteran pilot. While flying you give each pilot a set of identical, precise directions on how to fly the plane.

Are you saying that literally the rookie pilot would fly the plane no differently than the veteran pilot, with no variations ever?

Over the last 34 pages you've been unable to grasp that it's not the skill-based ability we're concerned about, it's the physics-based functionality. And you've concluded pages back that operationally they're the same and we're concluding that functionally they're not. We can argue this further, and get into the esoteric musings of whether it's us controlling the game or us directing the game to control itself, but I don't believe it's going to get resolved on this front, and at very least the majority of the polls seem to agree you're not quite right on this matter.

Functionally a rocket has a set range of ability and performance dimension, this is beyond the skill of the pilot. This ability and performance was designed into the rocket, beyond the skill of the pilot.

[FleetAdmiralJ]

while Bill takes his hands off the (curiously absent) flight stick.

You may want to go into IVA mode and take a harder look.

So basically the point is that when you fly, you are playing the role of the pilot: you are not a disembodied entity giving directions to the kerbal, you are the kerbal. And if you can't follow your own directions, well, you have some other problems.

so Kerbal XP literally has no point.

Even if Bob is not as accurate as Jeb at following my commands, this won't ever - ever - justify a different thrust or Isp.

And here is where we go from "Here is what is happening in the game abstractly" (eg Bill can't fly as well) to how it gets implemented in code. One way to implement a less efficient driver is by making the engine less efficient while they are driving - from a coding point of view. But I think it's clear from some of the posts from the dev team that that is not how it is planned to be portrayed in game.

Edited October 22, 2014 by FleetAdmiralJ

[tater]

A) The player controls everything, and the kerbal does nothing, and is just there. In that case, Kerbal XP has no point because the Kerbal isn't doing anything to influence in the first place. You can basically have a Final Frontier system to show where they've been, but not much else.

The player is controlling everything, though. If the verbal is, then in a "scenario" play, with a kerbal of stellar skill, a noob should not be able to fail a simple task. If he can crash the Mun rocket, Jeb is obviously not to be considered in control at all. (or dock, whatever).

You accept the abstraction that, while you may tell the Kerbal what to do, it is still the actual Kerbal executing those commands. If you accept that it is the Kerbal him or herself that is doing the actual driving, then that opens the door to there being variations in how well or how efficiently or how "on the line" different kerbals can accomplish the command you give them.

Now, interpretation B doesn't have to inevitably lead to Kerbals being able to do things differently, but it makes that interpretation possible.

Yeah, but how they do things differently matters. We can watch the ship do what it is doing. I should be able to watch 2 ships rendezvous and dock with a station (load a quicksave and do this, one of skill 1, the other skill 5) and tell FROM WATCHING THEM which is more efficient. If the two maneuvers look identical, but one uses less fuel… MAGIC. What about if you do the Skill 1 better than you do the skill 5 (accidentally hit the wrong key)? The an independent observer might think that the one that used more fuel was actually considerably more efficient. Magic.

Here is another example: Let's say there is an electrical engineer kerbal type. And this kerbal is able to, in theory, more efficiently manage the electricity usage, or better aim solar solar panels, and thus allowing electricity usage to go down at a lower rate, or to recharge at a higher rate. This is still "changing part attributes" according to some here. But I'm wondering if people would be cool with that. Or if any and all parts must perform exactly the same in all circumstances regardless of experience? (which again, begs the question of why even bother having experience in the first place then)

A EE is going to rewire the ship in flight? He's then going to change it back when his copilot takes the helm?

[Trentendegreth]

I want to ask other people, those who voted "for": are you so really really desperately want these, like, 5% to be added to your Isp? Is it SO important for you? Or you maybe would be satisfied by reputation, science, money and other innumerable proposed boosts NO ONE objects so far?

I know my English is horribly broken but I hope you've got the idea.

Again...not trying to attack, not trying to flame, not trying to be a troll...

I get it, and to be honest if the 5% really mattered to me, guess what, id edit the configs directly. what im saying is i understand why the devs thought it was a good idea to begin with, and while apparently most disagree with the jock-boots thing, and understandably so, why must people get so toxic about it... i was trying to propose a solution that would end the arbitrary arguing on who's OPINIONS are right and whose OPINIONS are wrong, by saying OPTIONS. but even OPTIONS are apparently a bad idea now, Thats how heated this thread has gotten...that an idea that benefits even a small minority gets shot in the foot... and We Are better than that as a community...

[Ippo]

so Kerbal XP literally has no point.

I think you misquoted there.

Yes: Kerbal XP, in its current form, has no point. THEIR experience affects MY performance: that's unfair and dumb. There have been 30 pages of suggestions on how to make the system better.

[Laie]

OK, so you are in a two-seater plane. You are in the back seat giving directions, with the pilot in the front seat. You fly in the plane twice: one with a rookie pilot and one with a veteran pilot. While flying you give each pilot a set of identical, precise directions on how to fly the plane.

Are you saying that literally the rookie pilot would fly the plane no differently than the veteran pilot, with no variations ever?

But that's not how KSP works: we don't tell the Kerbals to do X and wait for them to do it. For all practical purposes, the Kerbals are mere passengers.

An arbitrary delay in controls, depending on the Kerbal's skill, would be a possibility. I suspect that this wouldn't go over well, though.

[Franklin]

more ferram points,

[tater]

OK, so you are in a two-seater plane. You are in the back seat giving directions, with the pilot in the front seat. You fly in the plane twice: one with a rookie pilot and one with a veteran pilot. While flying you give each pilot a set of identical, precise directions on how to fly the plane.

Are you saying that literally the rookie pilot would fly the plane no differently than the veteran pilot, with no variations ever?

Bill and Jeb are flying the same craft in the same direction with the same orders. Jeb is an awesome pilot and can keep the ship straight like an arrow during the burn. Bill is not so adept at steering and he wobbles here and there during the burn. Bill burns more fuel doing the same burn as Jeb.

Could you tell from watching which pilot was which, yes or no? If you had readouts on how much fuel they used as well, and they were identical burns, etc.

That's the test. If it uses more fuel, it should use more fuel. Not have one judged "more efficient" with exactly nothing to show for it in trajectory.

Set up a KSP scenario. A rendezvous and docking. Have a new player do it, and other players of various experience. The amount of fuel and RCS left gets measured for each. If you watch them, they will fly entirely different paths. You'll be able to tell en route who is doing a good job and who is not. You'll likely be able to rank them reasonably well just by watching a youtube of them doing it. What you are suggesting is the same person flying the exact rendezvous 5 times, all looking pretty much identical, then having the fuel use remaining altered arbitrarily. Our great player might actually do a little less well on one, but that might be the expert kerbal and uses less fuel, even though anyone watching would say he made a big error (say he hits "Z" by mistake).

,

[Wiseman]

Voted "yes" - I like the idea. It lends itself to more tycoon-style gameplay, and gives a reason for using Kerbals, and even a wider variety of Kerbals to broaden your agency's skillset. The way I see it, the laws of Kerbal physics are already abstracted, and overtures towards realism are sacrificed in the name of gameplay. I'm quite happy with KSP being more of a game and less of a simulator.

[FleetAdmiralJ]

A EE is going to rewire the ship in flight? He's then going to change it back when his copilot takes the helm?

You don't need to rewire a ship to do tasks in a certain order to make them more power efficient.

[PDCWolf]

Wait...are aren't you justifying my "going to extremes" by turning around and saying that one plays the game with "the normal god mentality"? How is playing god not the same thing as "you fly the ship yourself"?

Well, it is me indeed pressing the keys, whatever way you like to think about it, if I don't touch the keyboard, nothing happens. Whether you believe the ship moving is a consequence of Kerbals interpreting the keypresses as some god or they themselves acting (which would fall into roleplay) doesn't affect the final argument that if it is me pressing the keys and flying the exact same pattern again and again and again (think of something as simple as being on the pad and pressing z, hitting space and waiting to run out of fuel, there's no way to do that differently) and getting different results is defying the laws of physics and penalizing/rewarding me for something that is definitely not happening which is a change in how the vehicle is piloted.

However, the larger point I'm making is this: Players seem to have two choices, or two interpretations of what is happening. Either:

A) The player controls everything, and the kerbal does nothing, and is just there. In that case, Kerbal XP has no point because the Kerbal isn't doing anything to influence in the first place. You can basically have a Final Frontier system to show where they've been, but not much else.

You accept the abstraction that, while you may tell the Kerbal what to do, it is still the actual Kerbal executing those commands. If you accept that it is the Kerbal him or herself that is doing the actual driving, then that opens the door to there being variations in how well or how efficiently or how "on the line" different kerbals can accomplish the command you give them.

Now, interpretation B doesn't have to inevitably lead to Kerbals being able to do things differently, but it makes that interpretation possible.

You are missing the mark here, remember this is a tycoon game (for the nth time, jeez). Also, none of those interpretations include probes in them, which, in theory, have preprogrammed paths with options of on-the-fly program modifications like in real life. You can't fit any of those two perspectives on that case. If I accept abstraction B, then probes should be programmed on the ground and sent up with little option of program changing other than rotating, translating and burning with very long delays because, according to perspective B, I'm not the computer, I'm giving orders to mission control.

Here is another example: Let's say there is an electrical engineer kerbal type. And this kerbal is able to, in theory, more efficiently manage the electricity usage, or better aim solar solar panels, and thus allowing electricity usage to go down at a lower rate, or to recharge at a higher rate. This is still "changing part attributes" according to some here. But I'm wondering if people would be cool with that. Or if any and all parts must perform exactly the same in all circumstances regardless of experience? (which again, begs the question of why even bother having experience in the first place then)

How can you aim a self-aiming solar panel that automatically searches for the sun better? even worse, how can you aim a fixed solar panel better?. The better option for these kind of improvements is to explain it with magic or calling it an abstraction exactly because they have absolutely no relation to logic or physics.

Now, I recommend you go back and read all those beautiful solutions to the problem, like boosting science gains (scientist kerbals), reputation/fund gains (celebrity kerbals), and the one I suggested, which is changing the information you get in flight thanks to better pilots who can actually operate those beautiful displays on the new IVAs and show you more stuff, sort of a kerbal-experience-driven K.E.R. flight assistant.

[Ippo]

You don't need to rewire a ship to do tasks in a certain order to make them more power efficient.

In fact, those modifications or different uses or anything you can come up with to justify the system would likely be discovered by the engineering team on the ground, then commanded to whomever is on board to be executed and would result in the same exact performance boost.

[FleetAdmiralJ]

I think you misquoted there.

Yes: Kerbal XP, in its current form, has no point. THEIR experience affects MY performance: that's unfair and dumb. There have been 30 pages of suggestions on how to make the system better.

I've seen 30 pages of "this sucks." I've seen very little on what system they should actually implement. Namely because, given how most people here view the game, there IS NO system they COULD implement. Other than maybe something like Final Frontier that shows you where kerbals have been, but little else.

In fact, those modifications or different uses or anything you can come up with to justify the system would likely be discovered by the engineering team on the ground, then commanded to whomever is on board to be executed and would result in the same exact performance boost.

Again, you're assuming Kerbals operate their space program like NASA.

[Norcalplanner]

But that's not how KSP works: we don't tell the Kerbals to do X and wait for them to do it. For all practical purposes, the Kerbals are mere passengers.

An arbitrary delay in controls, depending on the Kerbal's skill, would be a possibility. I suspect that this wouldn't go over well, though.

Agreed on the delay issue - I suggested it 20 pages ago. Unfortunately, I think it would fall into the "realistic, but not fun" category for all but the most diehard rocketeers. Putting some small level of inaccuracy into the heading might make sense - I remember in NOLF 2 that your sniper rifle target reticle would swim around a bit until you were more experienced.

[Ippo]

I've seen 30 pages of "this sucks." I've seen very little on what system they should actually implement.

Well, if you ask me... or just anything that doesn't screw up the physics.

I have to go, bye everyone!

Again, you're assuming Kerbals operate their space program like NASA.

Oh, right, I forgot. Forgive me, for a second I still thought about a physics based game, where the vehicle is built in the VAB (like NASA), rolled to the launchpad (like NASA), fueled on the pad (NASA), has NASA-like space suits, and NASA APPROVED HARDWARE. But yeah, I'm pretty sure that a game with an official add-on made by NASA probably brings no resemblance to NASA.

Edited October 22, 2014 by Ippo

[PDCWolf]

I've seen 30 pages of "this sucks." I've seen very little on what system they should actually implement. Namely because, given how most people here view the game, there IS NO system they COULD implement. Other than maybe something like Final Frontier that shows you where kerbals have been, but little else.

Then you need to get some lenses because in most of those "this sucks" posts there are indeed suggestions.

[Norpo]

Now, if there was a system like DangIt, with random failures, now then there would be a reason for it.

The higher level your kerbal is in repairing (X), then it could take less materials to repair, or repair it "better" (takes more time for it to fail again)

Or, if there was a system where repairs take TIME, then there could be a reason for stations. Engine fail? Try to bring it to a station with Mechanic Billy-Bobdock, and he'll repair it in a day or so.

I just don't want the ISP/Thrust to change, even if it's just a little bit. Sure, it's a reason to keep them alive, and that's all well and all, but i'd rather it be implemented in a different way, mainly because I can see it being exploited if done improperly, or simply making it not fun.

I'd rather prefer a system where parts that are up in space for a LONG time (and i'm not kidding about long, unless it's a permanent spacestation or on a grand tour, or perhaps eeloo you shouldn't have to worry about this) can slowly decay in grade, causing them to either become less effecient, less reliable etc. and if you have a kerbal on board, it can slow this down, or even stop it dead in it's tracks if it goes below a certain point. e.g Jeb can slow down Engine Thrust Decay by 50% if he's on board, Bill can limit Gimbal Decay to 5% (so if it would go below 5%, bill stops it) etc.

Only large problem with this is probes, but really, even in real life unmanned probes get damaged overtime. From the Hubble Space Telescope FAQ: The radiation that Hubble is exposed to in space also causes some degradation to its instruments, though this is mitigated since the instruments have regularly been replaced throughout Hubble’s life.

This suggests that Hubble has been repaired, which could be something implemented in KSP. I can see it being very annoying if you have to repair every satellite you sent up in your giant satellite network every 5-7 years or so, though.

tl;dr: Kerbal experience would be cool if they could prevent parts from failing, but before that, SQUAD would have to implement parts decaying, and that could cause problems and/or be hard to implement right, or simply be frustrating if done badly.

[CaptainKipard]

And here is where we go from "Here is what is happening in the game abstractly" (eg Bill can't fly as well) to how it gets implemented in code. One way to implement a less efficient driver is by making the engine less efficient while they are driving - from a coding point of view. But I think it's clear from some of the posts from the dev team that that is not how it is planned to be portrayed in game.

This is a nasty hack, and normally evidence that a developer does not know what they are doing.

The way I see it, the laws of Kerbal physics are already abstracted

I will never understand why people use this as an argument.

I've seen 30 pages of "this sucks." I've seen very little on what system they should actually implement

Then you're not paying attention. Why aren't you debating in good faith? Selective attention is an ugly thing.

[FleetAdmiralJ]

Agreed on the delay issue - I suggested it 20 pages ago. Unfortunately, I think it would fall into the "realistic, but not fun" category for all but the most diehard rocketeers. Putting some small level of inaccuracy into the heading might make sense - I remember in NOLF 2 that your sniper rifle target reticle would swim around a bit until you were more experienced.

I think they are doing it this for this reason:

They still want the game to be predictable, while having variations in Kerbal abilities. Simply slapping a 2% penalty or boost on engine efficiency to simulate someone driving better or worse is simplistic, but it also keeps the game predictable. If you have bob, who flys 2% worse than Jeb, on a mission, then you can reliably and predictably control for that. But if you have a ship flying off course because Bob is a bad driver, suddenly you lose your predictability and start introducing what in effect become random problems into the game (which the devs have apparently wanted to try to avoid). I suppose you could reduce the randomness of it less if, say, controls got more sluggish with Bill than with Jeb, but I wonder how well that would go over too. People would likely respond the same way: the control stick moves just as well, regardless of whether Bill or Jeb is moving it.

[Draemora]

I voted indifferent, because I won't really care either way.

What I do want to say though, is that all the people making a huge fuss over the fact that the current plan "isn't realistic bla bla" are being ridiculous. Despite what you may believe, this is a game, not a simulator, and providing magical (and even somewhat justifiable in this case) boosts due to character experience happens all the time in nearly every game and nobody even notices. I think this is a wonderful way to give Kerbals a useful purpose and provide extra reason to take good care of them.

It's a physics simulator sandbox according to steam classification. It has more simulator elements than game elements.

[Maximillian]

I would be ok with a system that allowed for an changes to ISP and thrust as a balanced trade off. An experienced kerbal pilot could boost thrust in favor of efficiency or vice versa. What I don't want to see is this happening automatically. Something in the right click menu for an engine or other part that was only available with your ace kerbals on board would be fine with me. Kerbal exits the craft and buffs go away.

Kerbal experience should absolutly boost Funds/Rep/Science.

Max