Bring Back the Barn!

[tater]

There's a thread in the lounge that included some pictures of a couple KSP tee shirts. I went to redbubble and looked, and there are rather a few shirts that say "It's not MURDER, it's science!"

#LOLEXPLODINGEKERBALS is a thing. KSP is not a high-fidelity simulator, but it simulates enough (IMHO) to be a useful tool in teaching concepts of orbital mechanics. Particularly at the "rough feel for" level. A typical example would be rendezvous, and the fact that to go West in a typical orbit to rendezvous, you'd in fact thrust the other direction so that you'd raise your orbit, and the trailing craft catches up. This is the sort of counterintuitive thing (to lay people) that becomes completely internalized in a KSP player.

I don;t have a problem with a "tier 0 facility, and honestly, I'd not even mind a barn if the career mode was good enough to have it make sense. I can easily come up with a career that would have that make sense. Raze the tech tree, and science systems and redo everything. Have multiple career start points possible, from national space program to Goddard in a shack in New Mexico, to Blue Origin or SpaceX style facilities, to Jeb in a barn (never to become the KSC we see, that's too NASA for that starting point). Your choice of starting point would select the building styles, and indeed the sorts of tech available. A barn start might be from large model rockets, to sounding rockets, and up from there. Regardless, the barn need not look like the Fisher Price thing my kids used to have for "Little People."

Edited April 26, 2017 by tater

[KSK]

21 hours ago, The_Rocketeer said:

I agree that learning and wonder are a key part of the attraction of KSP, but I think many videogamers would share the general mantra that in creative games like KSP amateurish whimsy is more fun than professional specification, trial-and-error more fun than calculated perfection, and garden-shed-contraption more fun than precision-engineering. The former make a game for gamers and the latter make what I will call a virtual-model for virtual-modellers. I enjoy modelling and gaming, but in my life I have more opportunity to game than to model simply because it takes less commitment and rewards me faster, even if that reward is 99% gratuitous explosions. Barn-KSP is more convenient to do than NASA-lite-KSP, which makes it more accessible and more cheap thrills-y, but NASA-lite KSP is what the real fans really want to graduate to, myself included. Net-KSP is a confused mess with both ends criticising the middle for having too much of the wrong stuff, yet somehow still succeeds and keeps everybody interested enough to keep playing and define and refine their own experience. Perhaps in future we'll see expansions that spur off in both directions, and then everyone will be happy (except the people who don't want paid DLC... ).

Edit: Wow, I was wondering what my 2000th post would be. I'm a little bit proud of this one.

Not sure where to start here. The assertion that amateurish whimsy, trial and error and garden shed contraptions make a 'game for gamers' is a sweeping generalisation and a patronising one to boot. On the other hand it clearly marks me as not being a gamer, which I'm not going to lose any sleep over. Then the implication that all that whimsy and trial and error equates to a Barn-KSP, which is therefore more accessible and cheap-thrillsy is, I think flat out wrong. Finally the statement that 'real fans' (which should be a red warning light in any discussion) prefer a NASA-lite KSP manages to be vague (what is NASA-lite?), patronising (implying that you're not a 'real fan' unless you prefer NASA-lite) and insulting. (gamers can't be 'real fans' since Barn-KSP - with attendant cheap-thrills -  is for gamers and only NASA-lite KSP is for 'real fans') in a single sentence.

Time for my own sweeping assertion then. Trial and error is tedious, a waste of gamers' ('real gamers' or otherwise) time, symptomatic of poor game design, and has no place outside of 5 minute Flash games.

Directed trial and error on the other hand is absolutely fine and strikes a happy medium between trial and error and calculated perfection. I might not care about calculating the precise delta-V for a Munshot down to the last metre per second before I let my professionally specified, precision engineered rocket anywhere near the launch pad. However, if my last flight ended in an unplanned crater because I ran out of fuel 2km above the Mun then I'd really quite like to have some in-game way of telling that the good ship Whimsical Trial and Error Mk2 is an actual improvement over the previous version, that might get me a bit closer to my eventual goal of getting to the Mun and back.

If KSP did a better job of directed trial and error it would do a perfectly fine job of both taking less commitment and providing increased player rewards. 99% gratuitous explosions are not required or desired.

 

 

Edited April 26, 2017 by KSK

[The_Rocketeer]

21 hours ago, regex said:

You're basically arguing against a point I never made or implied.

You seem to have mistaken my commentary and conversation for argument. It is possible to contribute to a discussion by expressing a view without intending to particularly oppose any previous statement. Assuming that my remarks were intended as argumentative is somewhat narcissistic, but perhaps understandable considering I was directly quoting you to frame my statements.

Edit: @KSK I respect your right to be utterly offended by my views, and I completely accept that I made some very in-the-round and generalistic statements which for many are still doubtless absolutely correct. I also appreciate the time you committed to letting me know what you thought of my post. If I upset you, I apologise.

Edited April 26, 2017 by The_Rocketeer

[tater]

@KSK, at some point I suggested that if @SQUAD was wed to no dv indicator in the VAB (bizarre given the dv indicator in the maneuver nodes) concept, they could have a cartoon version where in the VAB, Werner would show a little graphic that indicates if your craft could reach orbit, the Mun, Duna, etc.---literally a curve on a blackboard (or whiteboard) coming back to kerbin.

[KSK]

2 minutes ago, tater said:

@KSK, at some point I suggested that if @SQUAD was wed to no dv indicator in the VAB (bizarre given the dv indicator in the maneuver nodes) concept, they could have a cartoon version where in the VAB, Werner would show a little graphic that indicates if your craft could reach orbit, the Mun, Duna, etc.---literally a curve on a blackboard (or whiteboard) coming back to kerbin.

That would be fun!

You're absolutely right though - it's bizarre that the stock game gives us a delta-V meter when we're executing burns, gives us a Map screen that shows us how much delta-V various maneuvers require - but adamantly refuses to tell us how much delta-v we have left after the maneuver. Accepting the argument that making a fully fledged all-singing, all-dancing delta-V meter that can cope with whatever amateurishly whimsical craft the playerbase can throw at it, is too hard, how about just having one that pops up once you reach orbit? Launch vehicles tend to be complex beasts, space vehicles far less so.

[regex]

 

49 minutes ago, KSK said:

Accepting the argument that making a fully fledged all-singing, all-dancing delta-V meter that can cope with whatever amateurishly whimsical craft the playerbase can throw at it, is too hard, how about just having one that pops up once you reach orbit? Launch vehicles tend to be complex beasts, space vehicles far less so.

This was apparently going to be an easier task once certain changes had been made to the code that handles the craft overall but then NathanKell, the person who had made such comments and was dreading the task of programming said delta-V calculator, left the team.

Also, I know I've made (part of) that argument before and I'd like to point our that it's not about the difficulty of actual writing a delta-V calculator, it's about the difficulty of debugging the calculator in production code, which is totally different than immediately-releasable mod code. Modders have a big advantage in turn-over time regarding complex code like that and, as has been shown time and time again, Squad's QA cycle doesn't catch everything because it doesn't include every play style or method (AKA The Entire Playerbase).

[KSK]

1 hour ago, The_Rocketeer said:

You seem to have mistaken my commentary and conversation for argument. It is possible to contribute to a discussion by expressing a view without intending to particularly oppose any previous statement. Assuming that my remarks were intended as argumentative is somewhat narcissistic, but perhaps understandable considering I was directly quoting you to frame my statements.

Edit: @KSK I respect your right to be utterly offended by my views, and I completely accept that I made some very in-the-round and generalistic statements which for many are still doubtless absolutely correct. I also appreciate the time you committed to letting me know what you thought of my post. If I upset you, I apologise.

No apology required and you didn't upset me.  I disagreed with your views but they certainly didn't offend me.

Assuming that your views are correct though (I don't think they are but I don't suppose we'll ever prove that either way), I do have a question - and it's a genuine one because I have no idea what the answer is.

How many gamers go for your Barn-KSP-with-99%-gratuitous- explosions because that's what they honestly prefer to do? Playing around with enormous quirky rockets and watching Jeb laugh his head off as they fly apart around him. And how many gamers simply get stuck with the comedy exploding rockets - they find KSP too hard and aren't so invested in it that they want to spend the time digging around on the internet for all the tips, how-to videos and mods that open up the rest of the game for them?

If it's the former, then yeah, regardless of what the more serious minded players might think, KSP is probably about right as it is, or at least there's not such an incentive for Squad to change the core gameplay much. If it's the latter, then I think it's a real shame that a handful of Barn-KSP design decisions are blocking players from experiencing all that KSP has to offer, especially when I don't think it would take a great deal to remove some of those blocks. I've said it before and I'll happily say it again - the Map Screen is a fantastic bit of game design - it's a pity that those same design principles aren't applied elsewhere in the game.

After all - unless KSP takes a really violent swerve over to the NASA-KSP side, then quirky rockets are always going to be there for those that want them.

15 minutes ago, regex said:

 

This was apparently going to be an easier task once certain changes had been made to the code that handles the craft overall but then NathanKell, the person who had made such comments and was dreading the task of programming said delta-V calculator, left the team.

Also, I know I've made (part of) that argument before and I'd like to point our that it's not about the difficulty of actual writing a delta-V calculator, it's about the difficulty of debugging the calculator in production code, which is totally different than immediately-releasable mod code. Modders have a big advantage in turn-over time regarding complex code like that and, as has been shown time and time again, Squad's QA cycle doesn't catch everything because it doesn't include every play style or method (AKA The Entire Playerbase).

Interesting - thanks for the clarification. Another genuine question then - I've seen arguments that Kerbal-edu has a delta-V calculator so why not just use that? Aside from gameplay decisions, are there practical reasons why that wouldn't work either?

[regex]

11 minutes ago, KSK said:

Interesting - thanks for the clarification. Another genuine question then - I've seen arguments that Kerbal-edu has a delta-V calculator so why not just use that? Aside from gameplay decisions, are there practical reasons why that wouldn't work either?

IIRC it's because Kerbal-EDU uses code from Engineer/MechJeb, which turns it into more of a licensing issue in regards to folding it into KSP proper (MechJeb is GNU GPL, which is viral licensing and generally precludes its usage in for-profit code unless relicensed, which requires all contributors' involvement).

[monstah]

Hey, guys, there is some interesting conversation going on here, that unfortunately is not related to the barn. Can we bring the discussion back on-topic, please?

[Pthigrivi]

Yeah and its getting way too chummy in here. You're all idiots and your subjective design preferences are wrong wrong wrong!

Edited April 26, 2017 by Pthigrivi

[Red Iron Crown]

Much as I play KSP for serious rocket science these days, I have to admit that the slapstickish failure-is-funny motif was an important part of helping me climb that impossibly steep learning curve at the beginning. Having the failures be a reason to laugh rather than get frustrated is pretty important at the start when you're failing almost every time, it keeps the player interested and entertained rather than driving them away. 

I guess it was a progression for me: Fail all the time - > Find new and interesting ways to fail - > Start failing less - > Not really fail much at all. So much failing, if the game punished me for it rather than making me laugh I might not have gotten past the second phase, or even the first. Which would have been a shame, because under that silly wrapper there's a surprisingly deep and challenging game. 

I guess I'm saying I'm fine with the lolsokerbal thing, just so long as it doesn't conflict with the serious rocket science underpinnings. 

[tater]

A more fundamental question would be to ask what possible purpose a barn as the VAB might serve within the current career paradigm. Tier 0 would require a more universal expansion in terms of facilities (none of the other buildings would work, about the only 2 things that might work would be the dirt pad, and dirt runway). Those facilities would really (IMHO) require a change in available tech to bother utilizing them. As it is, you'd upgrade the barn away after a handful of flights at most. The pad and VAB are the first things that you likely upgrade. Given the stock clunky, lego rockets, you need to stack many tanks to make anything, and add in "moar struts" because noodle rockets are funny, and you quickly need a >30 part count---buh bye barn.

Makes no sense, IMO, for a building you'll see for almost no time at all.

[passinglurker]

55 minutes ago, tater said:

A more fundamental question would be to ask what possible purpose a barn as the VAB might serve within the current career paradigm. Tier 0 would require a more universal expansion in terms of facilities (none of the other buildings would work, about the only 2 things that might work would be the dirt pad, and dirt runway). Those facilities would really (IMHO) require a change in available tech to bother utilizing them. As it is, you'd upgrade the barn away after a handful of flights at most. The pad and VAB are the first things that you likely upgrade. Given the stock clunky, lego rockets, you need to stack many tanks to make anything, and add in "moar struts" because noodle rockets are funny, and you quickly need a >30 part count---buh bye barn.

Makes no sense, IMO, for a building you'll see for almost no time at all.

Balance wise the gap more exists between teir 1 and 2 so barring a through rebalance (that is sorely needed by the way) present teir 1 balance would become the teir 0 balance and new teir 1 would be some where below present tier 2

Edited April 26, 2017 by passinglurker

[tater]

The whole "tier thing" makes it sound meaningful, when of course in the KSP career, it's not. You'd have the barn a certain number of Kerbin hours before it was gone. Seriously, how long from discovering rocketry to orbit? 3 flights? 4?

[Superfluous J]

3 minutes ago, tater said:

The whole "tier thing" makes it sound meaningful, when of course in the KSP career, it's not. You'd have the barn a certain number of Kerbin hours before it was gone. Seriously, how long from discovering rocketry to orbit? 3 flights? 4?

1

Take the collect science contract, go out on the launch pad, collect all the science you can at this stage, unlock a fuel tank and engine, take the launch and space contracts, launch your oribt-capable ship into suborbital, get to space, hop back to Mission control and take the orbit contract, then reach orbit. Most every stock career I've done has started this way, though sometimes I do the "first launch" to mix it up.

[tater]

I intentionally go slow to suspend my own disbelief, lol.

[Vanamonde]

42 minutes ago, tater said:

The whole "tier thing" makes it sound meaningful, when of course in the KSP career, it's not. You'd have the barn a certain number of Kerbin hours before it was gone. Seriously, how long from discovering rocketry to orbit? 3 flights? 4?

Which begs the question of why some people were so enraged by something they'd replace right away anyhow. 

[Superfluous J]

1 minute ago, Vanamonde said:

Which begs the question of why some people were so enraged by something they'd replace right away anyhow. 

At least those that would be enraged that Squad spent so much time on something that they'd almost never see (destructible buildings anyone?) were spared.

[passinglurker]

30 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

Which begs the question of why some people were so enraged by something they'd replace right away anyhow. 

the fact that the balance is so flawed that you would just blow past it is probably a contributor to this "rage". Carreer mode is very much incomplete squad basically said during the brief beta "we got the concepts of the features we want basically implemented so we are going 1.0 now we'll work out how they fit together later!" and then they never did because there is no quick buck sales boost in going back and polishing the game...

Edited April 27, 2017 by passinglurker

[tater]

37 minutes ago, Vanamonde said:

Which begs the question of why some people were so enraged by something they'd replace right away anyhow. 

Fair enough, but it seems like the artist capable of doing the barn could perhaps make something, you know, useful  .

[Benjamin Kerman]

2 hours ago, 5thHorseman said:

At least those that would be enraged that Squad spent so much time on something that they'd almost never see (destructible buildings anyone?) were spared.

In my case, those buildings are great missile testing targets... 

 

I can see both sides of this argument. Cheap "found by the side of the road" parts seem ok for early game, and maybe there could be a mechanic that you have to make your "trash can full o' boom" fly, and then start getting contracts that give you funding for new parts/research, 

I can also see a system where the tier 0 building is no building at all. You start out with the barn and a dirt patch, and get a contract/contracts giving you funding to build a plane hanger, a tracking station, R&D, and administration. You could also have empty lots that you can choose what you want to build on them. Want another VAB playing Kerbal Contruction Time (I belive that's the mod that makes you wait for your rockets to be built)? Go ahead. Want two launch pads (if someone had a mod that launch pads take damage)? Sure. Make it more "sandbox" and make your space center look the way YOU want. 

[ZooNamedGames]

I've been eyeballing this thread all day and this is the first time I've sat down properly at my computer which allows me to better say everything on my mind rather than struggling to type it out on my phone. That said, please note that this is just my opinion.

The barn idea, at least to me, stretches back to the KSP video "Jeb's Junkyard" video, which shows Jebediah Kerman working at his shed (or barn) where a rocket is shown rising up. Now it's possible players could've mistaken this as an upcoming building seeing as career mode was being introduced at the time and new assets were being added such as the new space center. So it's fair to assume that players may have thought it was a lower tier building. It wouldn't be the first time players mistook content from a video and thought it meant new content when in reality it did not.

Having covered my basis of where Jeb's "barn" came from; now I'm left with the question of how it fits into the field of view of those who play KSP more seriously than those who intentionally crash their rockets to see the explosions. I've been seeing a lot of commotion between the old cartoony, silly style that KSP has had and attempting to get rid of it in place of something else (that's at least what I read, may be wrong) that's more serious. However I think that the style should remain, noting that it isn't the sole style of KSP. Thankfully for us, KSP lacks any sort of lore or fixed story so Squad can change the style or feel to KSP at any time. As such, KSP is both a silly explosionfest and a scientifically rich adventure. I see it having all traits all equally. It's both silly, but yet focused.

As I frequent Twitch livestreamers, I see a verity of players ranging from those with thousands of ingame hours to those who have less than ten minutes in the game. I find it hard to pin KSP as any one play style. The nature of the game depends on the one who's flying the crafts. Are they intending to go on a grand tour of all of Kerbol's planets or are they intending to crash into the VAB? Is Scott Manley flying? Or Markiplier? It's hard to watch both of those people play KSP and try to say that between both of them that there's one style that would work for both as far as realism vs silliness.

That said, the barn aesthetic comes up to it being fitting within the theme of the Kerbals. Seeing as the path in KSP had rockets before wings; wings before wheels, and wheels before electricity- it's clear that KSP does not follow realistic standards as far as development, however that does not mean that it can't adjust. As such, I think that starting with the barn is acceptable as it start's with the silly aesthetic that newer players will know, and then slowly adjust to the serious and realistic style that others would like.

Another topic I saw discussed was whether or not the barn would be good enough quality to belong with the rest of the game and for this, I must agree with what someone else said earlier in that whatever style or look they go for- it should be one that they put the best effort and quality into.

Those are my 8-bits worth of thoughts.

Edited April 27, 2017 by ZooNamedGames

[passinglurker]

@Benjamin Kerman the problem with "found by the side of the road" style parts is even if you accept them for early game these parts still need to be able to be used late game and there isn't really any faith that squad would implement a system to upgrade the appearance and description of early game parts as you progress so rocket parts need to be designed with all phases of play in mind, or in other words kerbals don't fly trash thier passion for space flight is to great to allow themselves to fly substandard equipment even when operating out of trailers tents and barns.

Now with facilities there is a bit more wiggle room design wise because squad implemented and bothers to utilize an upgrade system for them so even if you start out of a barn surrounded by a collection of temporary shelters and that isn't to your taste you can eventually upgrade away from that (though this is no excuse for shoddy art on squads end production quality standards must be upheld in order to make design choices tolerable for those who disagree with those choices)

@ZooNamedGames calling it "serious" is poor phrasing it's not so much that people want the art to be hyper realistic but instead that people want squad to take making the art seriously. In the past this #lolkerbalz style has just been a mask for cheap art, shoddy code, and not haveing to write useful parts descriptions. We can have it all both ways if squad would put the money and effort in. Parts can be both adorably exaggerated and hand painted while still looking like they were made by competent engineers with a few nods to technically accurate elements, part descriptions can give you accurate information about parts while still throwing in jokes, and facilities can start from humble beginnings without looking like they were thrown together from the unity asset store. there is no need for this silly vs serious nonsense everyone can be happy if squad is held to production quality standards.

[ZooNamedGames]

3 minutes ago, passinglurker said:

@ZooNamedGames calling it "serious" is poor phrasing it's not so much that people want the art to be hyper realistic but instead that people want squad to take making the art seriously. In the past this #lolkerbalz style has just been a mask for cheap art, shoddy code, and not haveing to write useful parts descriptions. We can have it all both ways if squad would put the money and effort in. Parts can be both adorably exaggerated and hand painted while still looking like they were made by competent engineers with a few nods to technically accurate elements, part descriptions can give you accurate information about parts while still throwing in jokes, and facilities can start from humble beginnings without looking like they were thrown together from the unity asset store. there is no need for this silly vs serious nonsense everyone can be happy if squad is held to production quality standards.

I can't say much for quality seeing as I've always been happy with what I've seen. No, it wasn't perfect, but at the same time I was ok with the game I had spent my money on.

Quote

the problem with "found by the side of the road" style parts... [snip]

I did make a thread answering how to deal with this aspect but it's getting off topic...  .

[Frybert]

Erm, ok. Bunch of stuff got poofed. Lets try this again...carry on.