Realism Overhaul Career Mode Discussion

[JRA]

If I understand, just do away with the Launch New Vessel entirely? Replace it with the sounding rocket contracts? That is an idea that I think i like.

As I mentioned earlier, I think I would like to have the game hold back offering Escape Atmosphere and Reach Orbit as well, until some undetermined number of sounding rocket contracts have been completed.

I imagine it would be better to tie as many rewards as possible (all) to something the player actually does in the game that is meaningful. Giving away EarlyOrbitalRocketry just because the player built something and turned the engines on doesn't strike me as interesting.

Edit: After all, who is going to offer to pay you to put things in orbit if you can't even launch a stable rocket of any real distance?

[Starman4308]

As I mentioned earlier, I think I would like to have the game hold back offering Escape Atmosphere and Reach Orbit as well, until some undetermined number of sounding rocket contracts have been completed.

That might be realistic, but I'm not so certain myself. Sure, sounding rockets are kinda cool, but I don't think we want players to spend 10 launches without even hitting space. For playability, I'd probably have the first contract be "hit upper atmosphere/the Karman line", the second be "reach space", and from there start offering contracts like orbital probes and suborbital manned flights.

[JRA]

You are right that 10 would be a grind, but that's why I said undetermined # of launches. I do think that 5 free science just for turning on some engines is kind of silly for Realism Overhaul and the Realistic Progression Tech Tree.

The ideas currently floating around don't have to be a grind at all.

With just the starting node I managed to get 44.5 science without being gamey at all. That took 7 launches, but it didn't need to.

All you need is 5 science to unlock Early Orbital Rocketry and you can easily get 6.3 science with one sounding rocket to only 20km. So even coming well short of 100km lets you move on.

Edit: You can get that just from doing a probe reports FlyingLow and FlyingHigh

Edited November 27, 2014 by JRA

[NathanKell]

JRA, apologies, I thought we had more in the readme than we did.

As of right now, apart from RO's required mods, we require SXT (although only the engines have RO configs as of yet) and Procedural Fairings. We support Procedural Parts and Procedural Wings (indeed, you will almost certainly need the latter to add fins to your sounding rockets), and we prefer (although, it not being available on CKAN yet, we do not require) Ven's Stock Parts Revamp.

The real problem is that we don't support anything past 1962 or so yet (the first five nodes), so there's lots of stock and SXT parts that haven't been placed and priced properly yet.

Certainly FASA is not supported yet. Want to help make it supported?

Regarding help: one thing might be using Gunter's Space Page to catalogue all orbital experiments flown (or failed during launch) from 1957 until 1962 or so. That will give us a nice idea of what early probe science should be.

Regarding feedback (and this extends to the discussion from the later posts), one area is how the balance works during the start. How much are your LVs costing, how much feels right to earn from contracts, etc. (My Vanguard costs about 1500-1600, a Thor-Delta about 2000, sounding rockets in the 300-700 range...)

Notes on contracts, science, etc.

1. We will be disabling all science from Earth's surface. If you want to do science, you will have to launch rockets (or, eventually, fly planes).

2. There is no super-easy way to disable contracts, and *certainly* no easy way to only temporarily do so. Besides, I'm not too keen on restricting a player's options; it's very possible to escape the atmosphere from the first node.

3. It may well make sense to remove science from (some) contracts.

4. Node costs need quite the workover. I am leaning towards basic orbital rocketry needing ~30 science, or at the very least 20 (remember, no Kerbin or KSC science). Orbital LVs, Stability, and Survivability should probably be in the 40 range (or maybe the same cost as basic).

The idea here is that at the start, you really don't have much of a choice: fly sounding rockets until you get enough cash and science to escape the atmosphere, and to unlock basic orbital LVs. Now you can fly some early orbital missions, or keep flying ever-higher sounding rockets. Next, you have a choice. You can either:

1. Get larger rockets and fly a lunar flyby mission.

2. Get maneuverable probes with solar panels, and launch probes that can report science from (polar) orbit ad infinitum.

3. Get Survivability and fly some human spaceflight suborbitals.

Once you have chosen a path and followed it enough, you can pick a second path, and finally you will have all three nodes. Then you can fly a crewed orbital mission. And that is where the tree ends, as of yet...

[JRA]

I will get started on the Gunter's Space Page chronology.

Also, I have started up a play through and am keeping track of what I did. How much it cost. How much return it gave me, roughly. Mostly in science, since this we have a new tech tree, but also in money. Not keeping track of reputation, but I probably should be. I am ready to start manned orbital flights and lunar probes in that game.

[NathanKell]

Awesome, thanks so much!

[tmikesecrist3]

I do have a question When I load a new game it gives me options which one is the right tech tree?

[OtherBarry]

I do have a question When I load a new game it gives me options which one is the right tech tree?

Still haven't really decided that yet. I've had no issues using the stock normal mode setup, but depends on your skill level really. If you're doing no reverts you'll definitely want more money, or a mod that allows simulations (not that that's particularly realistic for the 50s/60s)

[NathanKell]

tmikesecrist3: We have edited the readme to clarify. You should pick the Community Tech Tree.

[tmikesecrist3]

ahh sorry nathan I think I must have missed that *blushes* but thank you

[OtherBarry]

Sorry, completely missed the last part of your post. Ignore what I said, i was talking about difficulty mode stuff.

[JRA]

I have completed looking through all the orbital launches from 57-62. A rough summary of what the missions were about is here. Gunter's is not always specific about what the mission was for. Probably because a lot of these were spy says and defense stuff.

Still this much is clear:

Pre 1957 - Sounding Rockets

1957 - Earth Only

1958 - Already attempting Lunar missions and orbital comms.

1959 - Already attempting interplanetary flybys (unsuccessfully)

There were lots of experiments going up including beginning mapping and recon sats.

[NathanKell]

JRA: Thank you so much, that's exactly what we need!

[tmikesecrist3]

I dont think the Angina came tell the 60s but it was a spy sat, but it is easy to repripis it or even slap a few exparimints on it

[NathanKell]

Nope, first CORONA (public: Discoverer) launch was 28 Feb 1959 (an earlier attempt on 21 Jan 1959 failed when the Agena's ullage motors ignited on the pad, wrecking the Thor booster). It was not until August 1960 that a film bucket was returned successfully, and a week later the first photos were returned.

Indeed, CORONA (nee WS-117L) ran parallel to Vanguard; development started in the mid 50s.

[JRA]

So, now RO doesn't work for me and I will not be able to advance any further. If I try to close down with a vessel in orbit I can not get back to that vessel without KSP crashing, even though Mem use is at ~2gb.

Here are the notes I have so far on the career mode.

Contract Notes

General Thoughts

[Headhunter09]

Honestly I think using a stock-based tech tree (like CTT) is ultimately going to be harmful to the experience.

1.

The problem is that progression is based on a single tree with ever-increasing node costs. However, by taking money into consideration and breaking the tech tree into a number of sub-trees based on the field of technologies required, I believe it could be re-arranged to provide much more flexibility in play style. Here are a few examples:

• A node with very good parts that costs a low amount of science, but requires a number of expensive, technologically-diverse nodes to be unlocked first.
  
• An expensive node available near the beginning.
  
• A scientifically cheap node, but the unlock costs of the parts are high.
  

2.

In addition, having the tree broken up by discipline would mean that players could choose to get very advanced in certain fields more quickly (rather than being forced to follow the specific historical progression that we took). For example, while the US did not pursue the concept, we could have developed Orion drives very early on. Another example is nuclear reactors. The USSR launched a few primitive reactors, but we ended up pursuing more advanced solar technology instead.

A tech tree similar to this would be more "realistic" and more fun, I think:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/88257-Engineering-Based-Tech-Tree-%28with-flight-first-option%29-WIP-8-30-2014

[Bender222]

The only way to control the sounding rocket with remote tech is with the reflector antenna. It has to be inside a fairing because it will burn off otherwise. If there was a round or dome shape that might work better. I had to rig up the entire upper stage inside a fairing to get enough room to stick it on the side.

[tmikesecrist3]

I kind of noticed anther thing, Back when RPL was still available they had an R4 engine now at first I didnt understand this, and there where problems with when the gave you the r7 (that was used on the Redstone/juno but I and trying to start with a V2 as one of my early sounding rockets... sadly I dont have an engine for it

[Bender222]

I have played through about 5 nodes a few times and ultimately what I have taken from it besides there not being quite enough contracts is that there is not a big incentive to use probes over manned missions. Im not sure how to do this or even if the tech tree is even the way to do it.

[Bender222]

I kind of noticed anther thing, Back when RPL was still available they had an R4 engine now at first I didnt understand this, and there where problems with when the gave you the r7 (that was used on the Redstone/juno but I and trying to start with a V2 as one of my early sounding rockets... sadly I dont have an engine for it

Doesnt the mercury redstone engine look ery simiar to the v2? try Fasa

[Bender222]

Science on the pad has Nan and the dialogue box is messed up. you could just disable science before launch.

edit- i tested it when I landed in the water and it did the same, works fine in the air though.

Edited December 8, 2014 by Bender222

[Bender222]

the sounding rocket contracts should say that they work on all unmanned.

[OtherBarry]

Science on the pad has Nan and the dialogue box is messed up. you could just disable science before launch.

edit- i tested it when I landed in the water and it did the same, works fine in the air though.

Currently intentional. The point is that you shouldn't be able to gain rocket science knowledge by picking up dirt, or looking at the ground.

[Bender222]

couldn't you just take away all the biomes on Earth? or make the science return 0