A Minor Rant (about career mode and stuff)

[bigred]

To the Devs,

Well, it's too bad. Like I mentioned before, despite the potential and actual instabilities in the 64bit version I've almost always played 64 bit only (don't like the memory limits in 32bit). I use a lot of mods and my graphics mods alone are all at max settings (i.e. Interstellar, etc...). Unless this (bug) is fixed sometime soon, I'll just shelve this version until the next update. Sorry. 64 bit all the way or no way.

Oh, and one more thing, just a few personal opinions now;

I know you guys worked hard on this update and I congratulate you on what you've achieved, but to be bluntly honest I do not like the whole "upgradeable building" thing at all. My suggestion to you in the next update would be to offer those of us the option to start a career mode game without the need to upgrade buildings, just like all previous versions (.22, .23, .24, .25...). I mean, from what I can see when starting a career game you can already modify a lot of option regarding science, reputation, etc.....why not start with a full Space Center (if I so choose)?

Nodes....another thing I'd like to decide whether or not to start the game off with and not have a choice in the matter. I find navigating without them too tedious and frustrating. Please bring them back (by default). If more advanced players want the extra work then by all means include an option/button to "activate" that extra challenge.

Be careful listening to those on these and other forums who constantly demand more challenging experiences/realism, we are not all super-players here with multiple space stations around every celestial body or wizards at creating monstrous and or unique crafts. A lot of us are casual players just getting the hang of things and dare I say even "having fun" with your game.

I could go on but for now I'll leave you with this. Make no mistake I love KSP and all the extras modders have made for this game, simply great. I just don't like what you've done with the career mode at all.

Finally, I'm certainly no software developer but I do know just enough about programming to wonder;

"Why in the world are you even programming this game in a 32 bit environment to begin with? It's the year 4014, nearly 2015....32 bit programming is legacy stuff. The expansive nature of this game and the graphical needs for it make a 3 Gb memory limit (in 32 bit) a cement wall you can never go around.

If the majority of your player base still use 32bit based Operating systems (ex: Windows XP) or ancient PC's based on 32bit chipsets...you've got a problem. Quad core systems and 64bit versions of Windows 7/8, 64bit Linux distros are the "NORM" now and have been for quite some time....stop wasting your precious time and resources....go "full bore" into 64 bit development and leave the 32 bit version stream to gather dust.

My apologies though, I'm a little frustrated after reading a lot of posts from folks asking for you to add one thing or another to KSP are perhaps side-tracking you from actually developing a stable and mature program.

Cheers!

[vexx32]

This seems like it'd be better placed in the Development Discussion section; I'll move it.

[Captain Sierra]

Ah, I know the feeling. I've been there. When sork shifted from sandbox mode to career I was peeved too. Back then career was so trivial it wasnt even worth playing for me.

About 64 bit. I love it, it works great for me, and it sucks that it has that bug right now. To be fair though, I play career near stock so I can safely run on a 32 bit without memory crashing. Another important thing is that the devs are not in control of that. The instability lies within Unity itself, not KSP, and is something they can't actually do anything about. We're all holding our breath for Unity 5 which think we might see as early as late January, and we hope will have a stable Win_64 client. Until that time though, the devs CAN'T make a stable 64 bit because the instability lies in Unity. Its like if modulemanager didn't work in a version. Every mod dependent on it would be broken. Its not that the devs don't want to work on a 64 bit game, its that they CAN'T work on a 64 bit game, and that sucks because we (and Squad) are effectively at the mercy of the guys at Unity, and I wouldn't hold your breath on that.

As for difficulty, Squad has to know that it's flawed with the number of threads making our complaints known. I expect to see a rebalance of building prices and stuff as early as next update if not a hotfix. Additionally, I do think your thoughts have merit in the department of toggleable building upgrades. You're right, we have so much customization on difficulty as it is that giving us that toggle (or even choosing a starting tier) would be a huge perk.

I'd also go as far and say that when starting a new game, the system should make the default difficulty preset 'easy' rather than normal, because normal is actually a bit challenging. I play on normal because I choose not to grind hard mode, but I've disabled crew respawn and auto-hire. I can't get to the Mun unless I upgrade my tracking station, my VAB, and my launchpad, and thats just for a flyby. I want to get my astronaut complex upgraded, and I'm going to need to upgrade my R&D because of nearing the 140 science nodes, before I'd attempt a landing.

All in all, I don't entirely agree with everything you said, but I definitely understand where you're coming from and I respect that.

[Red Iron Crown]

You could use the debug menu to put in enough money to upgrade the buildings at the start of career if you don't like paying to upgrade them, that'll give you maneuver nodes, too.

Your 64-bit stability concerns should be addressed to the Unity people. Asking Squad to fix the instability of 64-bit is like asking your bus driver to fix the potholes in the road; he can't, and is just as frustrated by them as you are. Squad doesn't write 32-bit or 64-bit code, their stuff is at a much higher level which the engine interprets.

[Hodo]

I run 32bit with a probably a few to many mods. I think in my current .25 install I am running somewhere around 20-30 mods in OpenGL with ATM-Basic and topping out at 2.4GB of ram use on my computer. Which is plenty low enough I could probably squeeze in one or two more mods, but dont want them.

[ArNulis]

I want to contribute to career mode and this update rant as well. First of all after this update game runs A LOT WORSE! Before I could max out at 1080p stable 60 fps and now it just 20-30 after dialing down most things its at 40 during lift offs, but I presume optimizations will be solved later. Now the new missions. First of all the "Make eva report at x location" there is no way to see that location apart from navball that is total crap! (planet view is far from accurate) Second the EVA area is VERY small! like 50x50 meters or so... WAY TOO HARD to get to exact place, but possible... Now the impossible stuff (for me at least) "Establish specific orbit" now the deviation on this thing is STUPID. here take a look: http://imgur.com/a/3gspX ...?!?!?!?! I am not a mechjeb this trajectory should satisfy the game. Unless you make a way to create custom nodes automatically this has to be fixed!

On side note found strange bug:

If you try to place that engine as shown in picture with symmetry mode on it just bugs a little, doesn't place an engine and you can't turn off symmetry until you leave hangar and come back again.

Edited December 17, 2014 by ArNulis

[Ted]

Firstly I just want to say thanks for playing KSP and taking the time to write up your suggestions and thoughts on the past, current and future state of KSP's development and features. I'll answer a few questions you've posed here and see if I can add some points to the discussion.

To the Devs,

Well, it's too bad. Like I mentioned before, despite the potential and actual instabilities in the 64bit version I've almost always played 64 bit only (don't like the memory limits in 32bit). I use a lot of mods and my graphics mods alone are all at max settings (i.e. Interstellar, etc...). Unless this (bug) is fixed sometime soon, I'll just shelve this version until the next update. Sorry. 64 bit all the way or no way.

That's fantastic that win64* has worked for you up until this point. As we indicate in the readme, KSP Storefront and a few other places the win64 platform is incredibly experimental and is the absolute bleeding edge of the platforms we support for KSP. To put it concisely, we offer win64 for those that want to give it a go, but can't guarentee that it'll work for all or at all. We find this to be a good middle-ground between having a community-led initiative for the win64 platform and the eventual full support from us for the win64 build/platform. In my personal, not professional, opinion it seems somewhat unwise to not play a game absolutely and miss out on new content due to an unstable optional platform, I would simply just use the win32 option until the win64 one was stable enough. However, opinions are just that, everyone's is different.

I know you guys worked hard on this update and I congratulate you on what you've achieved, but to be bluntly honest I do not like the whole "upgradeable building" thing at all. My suggestion to you in the next update would be to offer those of us the option to start a career mode game without the need to upgrade buildings, just like all previous versions (.22, .23, .24, .25...). I mean, from what I can see when starting a career game you can already modify a lot of option regarding science, reputation, etc.....why not start with a full Space Center (if I so choose)?

This is an interesting point. I completely understand and appreciated what you're saying. Up until now you've played KSP in a certain way, with a certain flow, but now that flow has changed. I can only really say that this is a side-effect or 'drawback' to Early Access sandbox-based games. Essentially, because you've played the game somewhat backwards, starting with sandbox, then having career mode come about and create a mehanic of progression for the player. In most cases this allows the player to go from basic, barebones gameplay and evolve to playing with the complexity of the sandbox mode. Obviously there is much more that comes in over this time, the framework for a career mode namely, but at its core this is the main mechanic that changes as development progresses in the game and it appears to be the main mechanic that 'jars' most players.

I like to think of it in the following manner, feeling that this somewhat validates the above hypothesis:

If you (the player) started playing KSP when 0.90 was released with the upgradable facilities mechanic, would you find it odd or would you dislike said mechanic?

If the above were false, then that would suggest that it is in fact that you have become accustomed to the gameplay mechanics that you had available throughout career and while the upgradable facilities mechanic isn't inherently bad, you dislike it because of the lack of familiar mechanics.

It's definitely something to think about for all, I think. Not in terms of conclusions to draw from it or gameplay changes that need to be made, but in what it says about in-development games and how the player reacts to changes to the game that were planned from the start, but fundamentally change the way it's played.

Nodes....another thing I'd like to decide whether or not to start the game off with and not have a choice in the matter. I find navigating without them too tedious and frustrating. Please bring them back (by default). If more advanced players want the extra work then by all means include an option/button to "activate" that extra challenge.

Now this is one component of the whole upgrade progression that I gave a particularly significant amount of thought and consideration to. While it's beneficial to a new player to not solely rely on the nodes to play the game (as is the case with Pilot UI as well), it's also extremely beneficial for new players to have the nodes there so they can use them as a learning mechanism. To me, both are equally important and both need to be equally satisfied with an implemented solution. Currently, I think that the former benefit is more satisfied than the latter and this isn't necesserily a bad thing, but something that could be tweaked in the future development of Career. Cases where we could tweak them would be if we had another, earlier, level of facility in the Space Centre, that allowed the player to unlock nodes earlier - only ever doing basic sub-orbital or orbital mission on Kerbin without them.

Again, it's a good example of an mechanic that can be moved about and still have its benefits wherever it is, but it's about finding the point where it benefits the most players and fits in well with the gameplay progression.

Be careful listening to those on these and other forums who constantly demand more challenging experiences/realism, we are not all super-players here with multiple space stations around every celestial body or wizards at creating monstrous and or unique crafts. A lot of us are casual players just getting the hang of things and dare I say even "having fun" with your game.

Thanks for the advice. I like to think we're pretty even in what parties we listen to on wider feedback and moreover are attentive enough to note where the feedback is coming from so we know what type of players are providing what kind of feedback.

"Why in the world are you even programming this game in a 32 bit environment to begin with? It's the year 4014, nearly 2015....32 bit programming is legacy stuff. The expansive nature of this game and the graphical needs for it make a 3 Gb memory limit (in 32 bit) a cement wall you can never go around.

If the majority of your player base still use 32bit based Operating systems (ex: Windows XP) or ancient PC's based on 32bit chipsets...you've got a problem. Quad core systems and 64bit versions of Windows 7/8, 64bit Linux distros are the "NORM" now and have been for quite some time....stop wasting your precious time and resources....go "full bore" into 64 bit development and leave the 32 bit version stream to gather dust.

Ah, apologies if I'm jumping the gun here, but you appear to making a slight error of assumption. Unity, the SDK and game engine we use to develop KSP, is in fact a 32-bit environment to begin with! The editor is a 32-bit application on all platforms it's available on (only Windows and OSX currently) and so naturally when we're testing KSP in-editor it's a 32-bit instance of it. To go off on a slight tangent, this is one of the reasons that it's so difficult to track down win64-specific issues - the editor is a very key part of the debugging process. Anyway, I would disagree with the statement that it's both 4014 and 32-bit programming is "legacy". One could say that C programming is legacy as well, but it greatly depends on why you're programming in C - it's only legacy in certain applications, just like 32-bit programming. I've not seen the numbers in all honesty, but back in about 0.19 when we had Windows 32-bit OS specific issues, there were a suprising number of players that encountered these issues and were thus likely to be on a Windows 32-bit OS.

So while that's only two components of any discussion that would relate to supporting win64 over win32, we can see that already there's significant reason not to go full-steam with win64. The issue of the Unity editor being 32-bit is a very, very significant one and there are numerous other hurdles that we'd have to jump over to solely develop a win64 build, tossing out win32. As usual, an initially simple-looking issue is actually composed of many, many complicated and difficult issues to consider.

Again, thanks for the post and I hope I've answered some of the questions you had, while providing some nice information about KSP's Development.

* When I refer to win64, I mean the win64 build of KSP, not the Windows 64-bit operating system.

[bigred]

Thank you for responding in kind and taking the time to elaborate on how KSP functions in light of Unity's limitations.

Again, keep up the good work.

I rant because I care.

[shadowfax]

My suggestion to you in the next update would be to offer those of us the option to start a career mode game without the need to upgrade buildings, just like all previous versions (.22, .23, .24, .25...). I mean, from what I can see when starting a career game you can already modify a lot of option regarding science, reputation, etc.....why not start with a full Space Center (if I so choose)?

go into your starting options and set your starting money to a lot. Then use the starting money to upgrade the buildings before you do anything else. If you can't start with enough money to do it, take some throwaway contracts and "complete" them in the debug menu until you have enough to fully upgrade everything.

"Why in the world are you even programming this game in a 32 bit environment to begin with? It's the year 4014, nearly 2015....32 bit programming is legacy stuff.

I can't remember if it was here or on Reddit, but some guy was just griping that he couldn't play the game anymore because his 3gb of system ram and 1gb of shared system/Vram wasn't enough. The guy's trying to play the game on a relic of a computer - hell, I haven't had that little ram in a computer since probably before the turn of the century, and he's angry that his system can't handle it. The unfortunate fact is that not everyone can afford a great gaming machine, and not everyone has a 64 bit OS. I think it's nice that Squad is trying to let the people who don't have up-to-the-minute current machines have a chance to play.

Edited December 17, 2014 by shadowfax

[Crimson Sunrise]

I find myself not playing career mode at all simply because how confusing it is. I maybe be not the brightest of bulbs, but still. It was a confusing experience to me when career mode was first introduced and it's an even bigger confusion nowadays. IMO, it seems a bit sad that most of the basic stuff in KSP that shouldn't need explanation at all has to either be fiddled around or requires a tutorial from someone else outside of the development team that had more patience to tinker with it and figure out how it works than me. The game looks nice enough when you see Scott Manley playing it...Then you try to do the same thing and...the experience is different. Of course, this is about career mode, not stuff said YouTuber is capable of doing naturally because of prior astophysics knowledge or something like that. So, my point when mentioning Scott Manley is not about orbital maneuvers and things like that. Those have a 'recipe' and a series of tasks in order to be executed properly. My point is about hard things that shouldn't be hard at all, like figuring how to play career mode without relying on external sources. A game shouldn't require prior knowledge of itself in order to be played, or else only people that play the game already know how features work, while new players get frustrated trying to figure those out, because it lacks documentation or its documentation is so vague that is the equivalent of not being there.