Career too hard?

[Dunbaratu]

This!!!! And testing the same part just for a 20 different companies for 2 science is a little frustrating.

Overall though, I'm pretty pleased. I think with a bit more tweaking, it'll be great. KSP has always been great, and will continue to be great!

I think people would hate part testing a lot less if it had slightly better rewards. As it is, it always has to be a side thing you do along with a real mission rather than a primary point of a mission, otherwise you spend more on it than you get back. But, that's hardly a new problem with 0.90. It's been that way ever since part testing contracts existed. I just wish there was a way to tell the game to stop spamming my available contracts list with them crowding out the useful missions.

[Dunbaratu]

unlocking the RnD isn't a grind when each big mission gives you 200k... 5 missions and you are done.

Which doesn't start happening until after level 2 of the R&D building, unless you're playing on an easier mode. In hard mode, you haven't built up the capability to do the 200k contracts yet at the stage of the game I'm referring to where the boring grinding part is. Mun surveys get you between 60k and 120k depending on how many parts they have. Minmus slightly more. The 200k contracts don't start happening until you go to other planets and land on them. At tier 1 tech your launchpad is too small, your VAB is too small, etc to be doing those 200k missions. And if you're trying to make the R&D building go to level 2 as fast as possible because you're already unlocking most of the tech nodes at cost 90 and less, spending money on those other building upgrades sets you back from that goal even further.

It is possible to gain the funds in time to upgrade R&D before you've capped its level 1 ability, but only by playing in a very weird unbalanced way where you perversely ignore the missions that give you science and try going just for the ones that give money alone.

Edited December 18, 2014 by Steven Mading

[sal_vager]

Part testing on the ground is pretty poor, you need those juicier altitude and orbit tests for them to matter.

[ddenis]

None of these sliders are capable of affecting the hardcoded fact that funds are used for a lot more things than the other stuff is. They can't alter that balance problem. Lack of funds prevents you from using science points, but lack of science doesn't prevent you from using funding points. The 3 things are not equally important, which then also means that the ability to change them around with the admin building doesn't really help either. It's functionally identical to changing the sliders before you start the campaign.

Lack of science presents me from upgrading, what prevents me from better things, what presents me from easier fulfilling of some contracts. There is always something more important than other.

Of course, you can fly on rockets tear 1 without researching other tears, in this case I'll agree, the science doesn't restrict anything.

Why would I need science for building upgrading? Or reputation... As if building company won't build it for me if I'm stupid or ugly. Building rockets by old blueprints doesn't require new researches. Money are more important.

[ddenis]

The difference in difficulty setting is that: If we set 50% for science, funds and reputation, and set 200% for failures/building cost we get settings unbalanced from normal, because science is 1:2 when building cost and funds 1:4. That's why on hard level money is bigger problem then science.

[Janos1986]

Activating Fundraising Campaign first and Patent Licensing a bit later on, both on 25% commitment, can give a little bit of help with funding shortage and science surplus.

Once you manage to upgrade R&D, you just discard Patent Licensing and you should be good.

Who cares about reputation, anyway?

Edited December 18, 2014 by Janos1986

[Dunbaratu]

Part testing on the ground is pretty poor, you need those juicier altitude and orbit tests for them to matter.

Even the absolute best of those still barely pay for themselves, and that's asssuming you can hit the narrow window of parameters right on only one try. Actually because of the need to piggyback them onto other missions, the testing on the ground ones are the only ones I still bother doing, because they're the only ones that don't hinder the more primary mission the rocket is on at the time by forcing you to fly the rocket in a dumb way (too fast while low, or too slow while high, way out of whack from an ideal launch profile).

But that's really a side topic anyway. The thread isn't about part testing - which hasn't really changed much with 0.90. Whatever problems it may have, are ones it already had before.

[ddenis]

funds are used for a lot more things than the other stuff is. . .

By the way, what the sense of making science, funds and reputation equally important when there only one way of earning them? Almost every mission gives you the 1st, the 2nd and the 3rd. If the were different ways of getting different things, I could agree, but when everything you can is just lunch another mission...

And in any case, tech tree in this game isn't infinity, earlier or later it will be researched and after this you would need only money, but it's ok.

[zarakon]

Has anyone managed the polar (and other specific orbit) missions without maneuver nodes? I don't see how those are possible without tons of extra fuel and a LOT of maneuvers to tweak things. I sure never get them the first try.

Like in real life, wait to launch until your launch site is just about directly under your intended orbit. Also don't just launch straight east, launch in the direction you'll need to be going.

With a proper launch, a polar orbit only takes slightly more fuel than an equatorial orbit.

[sal_vager]

You can get science from experiments though, rep may still be changed a bit as time goes by to have more of a purpose, maybe even by having rep deteriorate over time.

Money has to come from contracts unless you can sell stuff later, but there's no plans for that kind of trading that I know of yet.

[Dunbaratu]

Why would I need science for building upgrading?

If you're looking for a thematic reason it would make sense story-wise, the launch facilities at Cape Canaveral, and the mission control facilities at Houston, and the network of tracking telescopes strung out around the earth, while they may be expensive, are *also* technological in nature. They're not just big dumb warehouses. The tracking center alone has to involve a massing computing facility. And obviously, the R&D center itself is a big science lab where you use science to learn how to learn more science. So just like you unlock a tech tree node before paying money for the part that's in it, thematically it would make perfect sense to say, for example, that you have to unlock tech tree nodes that allow for building upgrades first before paying for them. Making a technological complex containing labs, computer consoles, electronic networks, environmental training facilities, etc, involves a lot more than just paying a contractor to build a building. It's what the building is *filled* with that matters, and that's a lot of stuff built using science knowledge.

So go ahead and make an argument that for gameplay you don't like spending science on building techs, but story-wise and theme-wise it fits. Maybe an argument can be made that it's not a good idea for the game, but not because of any realism issues with it. It's perfectly realistic to say you can't make a fancier mission control center if you don't have better electronics yet, and so on.

As for the balance problem, I think it's really just caused by the fact that BOTH funds and science got new ways to obtain them, with more contracts that generate them, but only ONE of them now has more stuff to spend it on. You get a lot more funds for missions than you used to in 0.25, but this is more than offset by having to spend them on some very expensive new items. Whereas for science, you get more science for missions than you used to in 0.25, but this was NOT accompanied by a similar new place to sink those points into. The tech tree is still the same as 0.25.

This gives rise to the problem of gaining science points that you're not allowed to spend because they come in faster than the Funds to upgrade the building does. This is the part that feels like a grind - because you're sitting on points you can't use, and you're just running the same missions over and over until you have enough money to unlock the use of those points, thereby finally opening up more interesting NEW missions to try instead of trying the same old ones again and again. Getting new missions is directly connected to getting new tech. If your tech is capped out, you're not getting new types of mission showing up either - just more of the same.

So it's just as much a problem of "too much science now" as it is a problem of "not enough funds now". Add something to sink those science points into just like there's something new to sink the funds points into, and I think the two would be brought back into balance. Simply making the tech tree wider (not deeper, wider) would do it. Having to learn the tech for a building upgrade would be just one idea for how to do that.

Edited December 18, 2014 by Steven Mading

[SickSix]

Playing in normal here. I don't think it is too hard. I do think some of the contacts come out of order. The contract system needs tweaking. You should never lose money on a successful contact. Yet many early contacts won't even pay what the part costs. I do think contract progression and payout could use tweaking. And the tech tree could probably use some tweaking. Or offer different tech trees.

Edited December 18, 2014 by SickSix
spelling

[z26]

Which doesn't start happening until after level 2 of the R&D building, unless you're playing on an easier mode. In hard mode, you haven't built up the capability to do the 200k contracts yet at the stage of the game I'm referring to where the boring grinding part is. Mun surveys get you between 60k and 120k depending on how many parts they have. Minmus slightly more. The 200k contracts don't start happening until you go to other planets and land on them. At tier 1 tech your launchpad is too small, your VAB is too small, etc to be doing those 200k missions. And if you're trying to make the R&D building go to level 2 as fast as possible because you're already unlocking most of the tech nodes at cost 90 and less, spending money on those other building upgrades sets you back from that goal even further.

It is possible to gain the funds in time to upgrade R&D before you've capped its level 1 ability, but only by playing in a very weird unbalanced way where you perversely ignore the missions that give you science and try going just for the ones that give money alone.

Except that's incorrect, I'm at tier 1 rnd at moderate difficulty and have a minmus, a duna and a ike mission proposed. I can make 400k from a single duna-ike trip, which is totally doable with 30 parts as long as you are using a probe core + thermometers + solar panel + antenna. I also can make 140k only from putting up a satellite in kerbin orbit.

Edited December 18, 2014 by z26

[zarakon]

Playing on hard. I've explored the Mun, and just landed on Minmus. I've upgraded my VAB, launchpad, tracking station, astronaut center, and mission control to level 2. I've researched everything that I can with the tier 1 R&D. I've avoided using strategies, since some of them seem rather overpowered.

Some observations:

- At the beginning, the Kerbin survey missions are generally the most lucrative ones in the list, and you might be tempted to research toward jet engines in order to do those contracts. This isn't a very efficient idea though! Unlocking the airplane parts is damn expensive, and they won't help you much with anything else. You'd be better off spending your research elsewhere, which leads to the next point...

- For a short time, I was feeling a bit stuck. I didn't feel like I could build a Mun mission in under 30 parts, and I was pretty far away from having airplanes to do more of the survey missions. Part testing rarely paid well. But as soon as I unlocked the magical combo of probe core, battery, and solar panel, satellite launch contracts started showing up to save the day with their large payouts. It's cool how these contracts create an actual use for probes, other than role-playing.

- Something that I think could be an improvement would be for mission control to tease you with contracts that you can't actually take yet, like showing greyed-out satellite contracts before you have the necessary parts unlocked. First, that would give you some indication of what you should be researching. Second, it would be a nice carrot-on-a-stick, something to look forward to.

- The 30 part limit in the starting VAB is harsh, but some smart research choices can help give you more wiggle room. In particular, getting larger fuel tanks and engines allows you to do more with less parts. I was able to do my first Mun landing with just 30 parts by using the 2.5m tanks.

- R&D upgrade does seem too expensive. I think it should cost around the same as the current VAB upgrades, not double. I'll probably be able to complete the Duna and Eve exploration contracts before I'm able to upgrade R&D.

- The VAB and launchpad upgrades are a bit whacky. 30 parts and 18 tons is extremely restrictive, which is fine. But then the first upgrade to 255 parts and 140 tons makes it the complete opposite - you can do pretty much anything with that. Maybe there should be an intermediate upgrade level, like 100 parts and 70 tons.

- I think in general, buildings cost too much and rockets are too cheap. Other than some of the early part testing, most contracts pay out far more than what the launch costs, so I never feel strapped for cash while building. It feels like 80% of my money goes toward facility upgrades, and I think it would be better if it was more of a 50/50 split.

- Overall difficulty of hard mode seems good for me so far. It's given me a decent challenge without seeming impossible. It could definitely use some flow improvements though.

[nholzric]

The night up upgraded to 0.90, I started a new career, played for an hour or so and was frustrated. I was used to getting to orbit on the second or third launch, I had accepted the Orbit contract and was now screwed by the 18 ton limit! But I picked it up again last night, did some survey contracts, unlocked one or two more science nodes, built a bare-bones rocket and, Shazam, got to orbit! A few minutes later I was realizing I couldn't target a stranded Kerbal in orbit until I was within several km. Boy was I glad to see the navball indicators when I finally did lock-on, dead reckoning those last few km would have been an itch! (Haven't got much further in Career than that yet)

Moral of the, I was frustrated by the limitations; one drawback to the building upgrades is based on our experience with previous versions of KSP the buildings don't do anything *new*, it's all downside until you can buy back to where you were. But when I was more excited to get to orbit last night than I have been in three years of playing, I thought to myself "Ah ha, I see what you did there Squad."

(Heck, I remember my first time in orbit when you knew you were in orbit because for 20 minute (or however long the orbital period was) the horizontal velocity meter hovered around 0, last night wasn't *that* hard)

[odhal]

So here are my thoughts on the difficulty of the beta, as a pretty seasoned player. The biggest thing is that, for the first time ever, the game actually HAS difficulty. You can't breeze through the tech tree in a handful of missions anymore, because you have to upgrade your buildings first, specifically the R&D center. The R&D upgrade costs are so high that you'll end up upgrading your other buildings along the way, too. This gives the game a reasonable feeling of progression, which it never had in previous releases. The limitations of the VAB/SPH and launchpad/runway also force you to make well designed missions if you want to delay upgrades to those buildings. So overall the upgradable facilities surprised me with how much they improved gameplay.

What's bothering me right now is the cost of the R&D upgrade, along with the typical contract reward. Based on the average contracts I've been accepting so far, it's going to take about 100 contracts to earn the $6 million to complete the upgrades of the R&D center, maybe 50 assuming the average reward goes up and I complete a lot of "Explore" contracts. That's still a huge number of randomly generated, ultimately meaningless missions. As a side note, you can technically earn money through strategies, but $9 per rep and $10 per science are extremely low yields compared to the money earned from contracts.

The biggest area where the game is still lacking is the contracts. The devs were hoping to repeat the success of implementing "Spaceplans Plus" when they integrated "Fine Print" into .90's contract system, however it still feels the same to me. I've done a handful of each new mission type on my way to the first R&D upgrade, and it's not that they've gotten old already. It's just that I doubt it would be fun to grind the necessary number of them to upgrade the facility again.

Ever since they were released, contracts have felt woefully underdeveloped. The randomly generated text description of each contract is the perfect metaphor for contracts in general. When I read contract descriptions, I imagine the devs saying, "This is total garbage nonsense that we put not much effort into but you'll like it because ROCKETS and EXPLOSIONS and KERBALS and SCIENCE."

So what I'm saying is that, if career mode seems too hard to players who are veterans and know what they're doing, it's because they just don't want to complete 50 to 100 of these meaningless contracts. Fine print is an improvement, but randomly generated contracts still feel completely arbitrary and the new contract types eventually get boring just like the previous types. If there were some kind of narrative built into the contract system, that might help. Currently it's "explore here, then here, now here," and that's just another aspect of contracts that reeks of lack of effort to me. Before I get too deep into this rant, the game as a whole has made leaps and bounds. The only reason the contract system looks so bad now is because everything else is pretty good. IMO for players who know what they're doing, boring contracts are the main thing making career currently feel hard and/or grindy.

As a final thought, for newer players the game needs to do a better job of teaching them. I think it would be very difficult and frustrating to start as a new player with all Level 1 facilities. This is another area where adding a story to the game could help, by providing an early tutorial of sorts. I know "the game already has a tutorial" but even if people actually used that, the initial difficulty of career mode probably merits its own set of explanations to newer players.

[Pirke]

I'm playing on hard with FAR, DRE and real chutes, and I'm loving the challenge! No Kerbal died so far

So far Jeb has been lucky... Reentry G forces almost got him. And watching half of the radial chutes burn off wasn't helping either. The other half failed due to the speed being too high to deploy. Still he was able to jettison everything below the pod and deploy the single emergency chute, it saved the day!

[SpaceSphereOfDeath]

I find the career mode to be just right, the survey missions give me a reason to build atmosphere planes. And the lack of manoeuvre nodes doesn't affect me as I have done interplanetary missions without them, so I am capable of flying without them.

I also didn't find myself grinding at any point, or at least grinding in an annoying manner (but I am playing on normal, plus some hard features). I am playing with life support mods, and the limits on vessel size has forced me to be creative, which I like.

[WanderingKid]

I'm finding the cost of the upgrades on hard mode to be restrictive, and I'm glad about that, actually. It's forcing me to learn to do a lot with very little. I can build Eve science lifters, with a little bit of math and a lot of fuel lines. I just spent an afternoon trying to figure out exactly how to squeeze the most dV out of a rocket stage set to attempt a Mun shot at 18t/30 parts.

The only portion of the game I think is horribly unbalanced currently is Outsourced R&D . You can max out Tier 4 in just a few missions. If you don't abuse that early on you won't really care that R&D hasn't upgraded yet. However, I do think restricting surface samples until it's upgraded seems off. However, I believe with the advent of the 'Barn' tier, this will be a lot simpler to achieve in the future.

[foamyesque]

My biggest gripe: it's not that it's especially hard, because it's not, but that the rewards and requirements for some of the contracts are wildly askew. Early part tests have more challenging requirements (altitude + speed window is, IMO, a trickier target to hit than "orbit at this altitude") than later ones, but where testing a Mainsail or whatever can pay you something like 15:1, testing a LV-45 in flight will barely pay for the fuel you need to get it there, and you're more likely to screw up and miss your window.

On the other hand, you can do a "science from space" mission with an even cheaper rocket and make ten times as much money. =/

Also, it's kinda absurd that contract payouts are a better way to get science than doing science.

[RocketPilot573]

Way too hard.

[djnattyd]

0.90.0 career mode for me carries with it the same level of difficulty as 0.25 career mode and less of the grind. Why? Because I was already using FinePrint as well as Kerbal Construction Time, playing with permadeath, no reverts or quicksaves, a huge reduction in starting funds and a modified tech tree that only gave me basic equipment and NO manned pods.

And you know what? It's still easier than real rocketry.

[quantumpion]

I don't see why Squad can't just program a set of real progression missions that mimic the real world space race. And then have the random contracts in addition to that for fluff. Sort like an RPG, how you have a main story quest and sidequests for extra loot. The actual progression contracts could be hand-crafted to be balanced, meaningful, and fun, and the random contracts you get would depend on what phase of progression you are on.

[foamyesque]

I don't see why Squad can't just program a set of real progression missions that mimic the real world space race. And then have the random contracts in addition to that for fluff. Sort like an RPG, how you have a main story quest and sidequests for extra loot. The actual progression contracts could be hand-crafted to be balanced, meaningful, and fun, and the random contracts you get would depend on what phase of progression you are on.

That'd solve a lot of issues with it, yes. It's there to some extent with the Explore X missions, but I'd like to see some more work with that.

[Ziff]

I don't see why Squad can't just program a set of real progression missions that mimic the real world space race. And then have the random contracts in addition to that for fluff. Sort like an RPG, how you have a main story quest and sidequests for extra loot. The actual progression contracts could be hand-crafted to be balanced, meaningful, and fun, and the random contracts you get would depend on what phase of progression you are on.

Now that the game is in Beta, they will, just be patient. Alpha was all about getting core game mechanics in place. (With the exception of deep space refueling which will come later.) Beta is all about refining the game mechanics. The addition of fine print was a big help in that it added a number of needed contracts. As the tech tree gets refined so will the contracts to go along with it.