University KSP Competition [Event Occurred 15th Nov]

[ZodiusInfuser]

The event this discussion related to occurred on November the 15th. Skip to here if you're interested in the format and challenges chosen.

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Hi,

I am organising a KSP competition for a University gaming society I am involved in, and was wondering if I could get some advice on the event format idea, and the kind of challenges members should be given?

The event idea so far is that members will bring their computers along and play KSP for 3-5 hours (tbd), with the goal being to get the highest score within the time period. Members are awarded points based on the kinds of activities achieved (e.g escaping the aptmosphere = 1 point, killing a kerbal = -10 points), and are allowed to repeat them multiple times. Points will be persistent across quickloads, meaning any achievements or tragedies will remain on their score. At the end of the event the member with the highest score will win a prize (tbd).

What I would like to do is have this event open to both experienced and inexperienced members, as well as those that own the full game or just the demo. This may require separate tiers based on skill or game type, with points and challenges adjusted accordingly. As such I was wondering whether the community had any suggestions for short and long challenges that could be achieved in the event time, that cater to the different game versions and skill levels?

Ideas I have so far (could do with a lot more):

• Escape the aptmosphere
  
• Achieve a circular orbit
  
• Return a Kerbal to Kerbin safely from orbot
  
• Have a probe leave Kerbin SOI (Full only)
  
• Enter orbit around the Mun
  
• Land and have a Kerbal walk on the Mun
  
• Successfully return Kerbals to Kerbin from the Muns surface
  
• Achieve orbit around Minmus (Full only)
  
• Construct a mutli-flight space station (Full only)
  
• Kill a Kerbal or strand them in space (0.5x for Demo since probe is not an option)
  

I was also thinking of using a google chart like this to show peoples scores live throughout the event:

(In this case the kerbal deaths need to be subtracted from the positive bar length to get the final score)

Thanks in advance

Edited November 15, 2014 by ZodiusInfuser

[Gravaar]

You might want to ask people how many hours of KSP they have played BEFORE putting up a score system and deduct 1 point for each 10 hours they have played (or even a 1 for 1)

E.g. I would start with Minus 60 points (closer to - 120 *wink wink*) by my hours on steam

there is a vast skill difference between someone who has 20 odd hours with it and someone who has 200 hours

KSP doesn't have a learning curve it is more like a learning wall

And maybe force experienced people to play hard core mode, no quicksaves or quickloads, and dead is dead

Edited November 3, 2014 by Gravaar

[Nedal]

Oh mark... XD

[Laie]

The event idea so far is that members will bring their computers along and play KSP for 3-5 hours (tbd), with the goal being to get the highest score within the time period.

All in one room provides the opportunity for instant feedback / exchange of ideas / learning from the mistakes of others. A cunning first-time player could conceivably make it to Duna and back in that setting and timeframe.

And as Gravaar said: previous experience will make a huge difference. Plop one mentor into the group and people can move out past the Mun within two hours. If they even want to. It's also a mentality thing: will they determinedly go for a high score or will they rather enjoy their first moonwalk?

So I suggest you make your scale much larger, including landings on Duna and the Joolian Moons. Probably noone gets that far, but it will be by no means impossible.

[Rakaydos]

Your score is how many kerb Bucks you have at the end of the time limit.

[ZodiusInfuser]

Thanks for the suggestions . I quite like the idea of handicaping experienced players by either taking points away, or introducing extra challenges. One that may be fun could be to have experienced players play in Science mode rather than Sandbox, so they have do missions to get science as well as get competition points . May be a tad too harsh though.

Introducing a mentor into the mix could be a good idea. There will be a lot of new people there, who've probably never played the game before, so having someone help them progress rather than leave them to get frustrated could be really valuable. Plus if the mentor is a good player, they could still have time to get a good competition score.

In terms of challenges to complete, does anyone have any specific suggestions? For instance how many interesting things are there to do in the Demo beyond a Mun mission or leaving Kerbins SOI? It's been a long time since I played the demo, so can't really remember what it featured.

[Starwhip]

You might want to ask people how many hours of KSP they have played BEFORE putting up a score system and deduct 1 point for each 10 hours they have played (or even a 1 for 1)

E.g. I would start with Minus 60 points (closer to - 120 *wink wink*) by my hours on steam

there is a vast skill difference between someone who has 20 odd hours with it and someone who has 200 hours

KSP doesn't have a learning curve it is more like a learning wall

And maybe force experienced people to play hard core mode, no quicksaves or quickloads, and dead is dead

Gonna put that in my signature...

[Kulebron]

I suggest another competition mode: show a model capable of doing something, compete in efficiency and forgive any hyperediting or crashes if the concept is working. This will be less demanding in flying experience. Although, develop something complex takes time and experience as well.

[Wanderfound]

Alternately, particularly as you have a bunch of newbie players: stick 'em in career mode. This'll slow down the experienced players (because they won't be able to immediately slap together a gigantic asparagus booster) and reduce the decision paralysis on the newbies (because there are clear goals and won't be an overwhelming collection of parts to choose from).

Victory conditions could be highest funds, highest science, highest rep or some combination of the three.

[Cygnus]

You might want to consider making teams of 2 or 3 if there are enough people. The purpose is to spread the veteran players with the newer ones to make the competition more fair and so that the experienced players can help guide their teammates.

You may introduce diminishing scoring returns for repeat accomplishments within a team, such as the first teammate to arrive at minmus will get full points and a second teammate will only get half points for the team.

This way the score wont entirely consist of all three members going to one place and reusing the same exact design and mission profile, and it will force people to plan diverse missions to maximize points. It will also give experienced players incentive to leave the easier tasks to their newer teammates (such as a mission to the Mun) so that they can focus on high risk missions to jool or wherever.

I wish there was a KSP competition at my university...

[ZodiusInfuser]

Thank you all for the feedback. I've discussed with other society members and we're going forward with the event in a weeks time . Still got to finalise some of the details of how it will run, and we definitely want to incorporate some of your ideas. Here's the current list of challenges that got discussed:

I welcome your thoughts on these. I tried to go for a range of skill levels, but also add a few interesting ones in there. There's only 3 hours though so it's not expected for everything to be achieved. I'll be testing them out this weekend.

Thanks

[cantab]

In terms of challenges to complete, does anyone have any specific suggestions? For instance how many interesting things are there to do in the Demo beyond a Mun mission or leaving Kerbins SOI? It's been a long time since I played the demo, so can't really remember what it featured.

Well there's sundiving and escaping, both of which require lots of delta-V. There's anomaly hunting, IIRC most of the anomalies on Kerbin and the Mun are there in the demo. You can build a rocket plane though it may look a bit daft.

[ZodiusInfuser]

Thank you everyone for the feedback on this. We ran the event today. It was good fun, although not that many people attended in the end (possibly due to weather). Here's the results:

(Note google sheets doesn't subtract the negative bars from the positive, so in this case Fred came first and Chris second)

If anyone is interested in repeating this type of event here are the rules we followed:

• A science mode save with all tech nodes unlocked
  
• Quick load and revert flight allowed, with any achievements or losses being persistent on the scoreboard
  
• Players not allowed to exploit quickload to get points they couldn't do (e.g land on the mun, quickload to munar orbit, and land again to get points twice)
  
• 3 hours of real-time to get the most points possible
  
• Achievements verified by an adjudicator, and players must announce any losses
  
• Points lost from stranded kerbals can be removed if they are later recovered
  
• Adjudicators allowed to offer advice to new players
  

Feel free to PM me if you'd like to get a copy of the google sheet we used for the event. Note that the veteran and beginner categories were not used in the end, but the idea was that we'd offer two prizes if more people had attended, based on their prior game experience.

Thanks,