Constructive feedback

[Greg310]

So I absolutely love the game, and have 700+ hours into it. Here are some things that continue to puzzle me, and that I'd like to see further development on.

Contract briefing text

-Am I the only one that despises that dynamically generated briefing description text for contracts? It's just annoying, and honestly kind of dumb. I don't know if the Devs were trying to be funny or something. But it's horrible. Is it just supposed to be nonsense filler? I find it continuously brings out a negative reaction in me when I read them. Seems hokie.

Unfinished cockpits IVA view

-Is this a bug I'm experiencing, or are some of the cockpits still unfinished? One of them has a blank bulkhead in front of you where the window should be. And unless I'm mistaken one of the new MK3 ones is just a black screen.

Larger xenon tanks

-Why still only the two xenon tanks

Landing gear

-Why still only Small Landing Gear for airplanes? Seriously? Where's the medium and large?

Construction in space

-Still no way to do assembly in space or on outposts except to use docking ports??

Science module IVA

-Still no IVA on science module??

Docking or Landing Pad feature

-I'd love to make an airport or spaceport with easy refuel capability. This is sorely missing. Why can't I make a landing pad on my outpost on the moon or another planet. When a ship lands there I get fuel transfer capability to the structure the landing pad is connected with. How am I supposed to fly planes around Eve or Laythe when I can't refuel them without some crazy docking port contraption. We need landing pads/landing strips!

Kerbal POV view in stations

-This is something that might take significant development. But how cool would it be to fly around inside your space station and go through the tubes and modules etc. You could possibly program something that would operate like an in-vehicle universe. Just have the Unity player spawn a mini in-station universe when you hit the Station IVA button or something. And your Kerbal could move around with jetback style controls inside the station.

New Eve biomes

- So the biggest crater on Eve isn't a special biome? I mean it takes up like an 1/8th of the entire planet. I managed to successfully land on the caldera island in the middle of it only to find out it was just Midlands. Bleh...

Thanks for reading. Hope this reaches the Devs.

Greg

Edited December 18, 2014 by Greg310
grammar

[Tinyboss]

So I absolutely love the game, and have 700+ hours into it.

Me, too.

Contract briefing text

-Am I the only one that despises that dynamically generated briefing description text for contracts? It's just annoying, and honestly kind of dumb. I don't know if the Devs were trying to be funny or something. But it's horrible. Is it just supposed to be nonsense filler? I find it continuously brings out a negative reaction in me when I read them. Seems hokie.

Me, too.

[djnattyd]

The inline cockpit has been missing an IVA since it was introduced. The IVA scene when extracted into Unity is marked as "Generic Space", there's also a larger 3-man one that thankfully isn't used as it's awful (it is used in the old B9 HL cockpit if you have Rasterprop installed). As for the contract briefings, as rubbish as they are, it saves a lot of dev time to do procedurally generated text than it does to write out +500 contracts.

[xcorps]

So I absolutely love the game, and have 700+ hours into it. Here are some things that continue to puzzle me, and that I'd like to see further development on.

Contract briefing text

-Am I the only one that despises that dynamically generated briefing description text for contracts? It's just annoying, and honestly kind of dumb. I don't know if the Devs were trying to be funny or something. But it's horrible. Is it just supposed to be nonsense filler? I find it continuously brings out a negative reaction in me when I read them. Seems hokie.

I agree.

Unfinished cockpits IVA view

-Is this a bug I'm experiencing, or are some of the cockpits still unfinished? One of them has a blank bulkhead in front of you where the window should be. And unless I'm mistaken one of the new MK3 ones is just a black screen.

Don't care.

Larger xenon tanks

-Why still only the two xenon tanks

Not really sure this is an issue.

Landing gear

-Why still only Small Landing Gear for airplanes? Seriously? Where's the medium and large?

Agree

Construction in space

-Still no way to do assembly in space or on outposts except to use docking ports??

Agree

Science module IVA

-Still no IVA on science module??

Really really don't care.

Docking or Landing Pad feature

-I'd love to make an airport or spaceport with easy refuel capability. This is sorely missing. Why can't I make a landing pad on my outpost on the moon or another planet. When a ship lands there I get fuel transfer capability to the structure the landing pad is connected with. How am I supposed to fly planes around Eve or Laythe when I can't refuel them without some crazy docking port contraption. We need landing pads/landing strips!

Not sure this is something that is consistent with the game. No.

Kerbal POV view in stations

-This is something that might take significant development. But how cool would it be to fly around inside your space station and go through the tubes and modules etc. You could possibly program something that would operate like an in-vehicle universe. Just have the Unity player spawn a mini in-station universe when you hit the Station IVA button or something. And your Kerbal could move around with jetback style controls inside the station.

No..just no.

My addition:

Make rovers worth the time and effort it takes to build, test, fly, deploy and crash. As it is now, there is absolutely no point whatsoever to rovers.

Edited December 19, 2014 by xcorps

[Vanamonde]

These suggestions for the game's development have been moved to Suggestions and Development Discussions.

[Bill Phil]

The inline cockpit has been missing an IVA since it was introduced. The IVA scene when extracted into Unity is marked as "Generic Space", there's also a larger 3-man one that thankfully isn't used as it's awful (it is used in the old B9 HL cockpit if you have Rasterprop installed). As for the contract briefings, as rubbish as they are, it saves a lot of dev time to do procedurally generated text than it does to write out +500 contracts.

Actually, if you just make a template for all the contract types, and have procedurally generated filler words in certain areas.

Test contract:

We here at *insert name here* wanted to find out what happens to our *insert product name here* when it gets used *insert test criteria here*. Surprisingly, no one came up with this idea until *insert witty comment* happened and that's why we're here.

[Captain Sierra]

Okay, this deserves a full breakdown, so stand by.

Contract briefing text

-Am I the only one that despises that dynamically generated briefing description text for contracts? It's just annoying, and honestly kind of dumb. I don't know if the Devs were trying to be funny or something. But it's horrible. Is it just supposed to be nonsense filler? I find it continuously brings out a negative reaction in me when I read them. Seems hokie.

I don't so much mind that, as the lack of any REAL premise behind what I'm doing. If it were somewhat geared towards rationally explaining what I'm being asked to do and why (even if it is complete bulls***), I'd be much happier.

Unfinished cockpits IVA view

-Is this a bug I'm experiencing, or are some of the cockpits still unfinished? One of them has a blank bulkhead in front of you where the window should be. And unless I'm mistaken one of the new MK3 ones is just a black screen.

IVA's take time to make, especially quality ones. Yes, the Mk3 IVAs are not in yet. They are on their way so a little bit of patience will solve this one.

Larger xenon tanks

-Why still only the two xenon tanks

The stock ion engine does not create much of a need for anything larger. Heck, I've made probes which only use the stock xenon tanks and I use Near Future Propulsion. MAYBE there's some use for a thin 1.25m and a triple length 0.625m but there is near zero demand so there is zero supply. I expect this might be addressed as beta progresses, but its an interesting point to bring up and worth raising for Squad's consideration.

Landing gear

-Why still only Small Landing Gear for airplanes? Seriously? Where's the medium and large?

There are supposed to be 2 more sizes coming. Obviously they did not make the lastest release so one can only assume it was because they were not ready. I trust Squad will release these when they are fit for public use.

Construction in space

-Still no way to do assembly in space or on outposts except to use docking ports??

If you're refering to Extraplanetary Launchpads like functionality, such has never been planned for implementation. Something more like KAS or MKS is a bit more on the table. I'd ask you to elaborate here as I'm curious to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Science module IVA

-Still no IVA on science module??

To be fair, I said IVAs take time, but you're right here. I think it's been backburnered and since we're in beta now, this will probably get looked at. Either way, its prudent of you to raise it as it does need attention.

Docking or Landing Pad feature

-I'd love to make an airport or spaceport with easy refuel capability. This is sorely missing. Why can't I make a landing pad on my outpost on the moon or another planet. When a ship lands there I get fuel transfer capability to the structure the landing pad is connected with. How am I supposed to fly planes around Eve or Laythe when I can't refuel them without some crazy docking port contraption. We need landing pads/landing strips!

Some kind of KAS fuel pipe functionality may be implemented, but I wouldnt hold your breath on this. The devs have said they are going to be looking at options for deep space fueling, and that will include a stock resource harvesting system as well, but fueling on the ground is quite likely to remain one of the more interesting challenges of KSP. It pushes your design and engineering skills to either be able to make orbit again or come up with a creative way to dock on land.

Kerbal POV view in stations

-This is something that might take significant development. But how cool would it be to fly around inside your space station and go through the tubes and modules etc. You could possibly program something that would operate like an in-vehicle universe. Just have the Unity player spawn a mini in-station universe when you hit the Station IVA button or something. And your Kerbal could move around with jetback style controls inside the station.

This would be REALLY hard to do and is honestly something I think is above the level of the Squad devs. You have to consider that each part would have to have its own full 360 degree fully interactive IVA that then can link up and interact with another module right beside it via an open hatch. The level of complexity, the memory bloat, and rendering power would potentially be astronomical. KSP needs more optimization before this can even come onto the table. Even still, I think its asking a bit much. Cool as it is, the implementation difficulties are huge.

New Eve biomes

- So the biggest crater on Eve isn't a special biome? I mean it takes up like an 1/8th of the entire planet. I managed to successfully land on the caldera island in the middle of it only to find out it was just Midlands. Bleh...

I'm going to assume given the scale of the recent biome overhaul, that this first run is a sort of 'rough cut' and that we'll see worlds be more refined as the game progresses. Eve kind of got the short stick with biomes, likely because of its difficulty and the devs thought few people would be going there in career and they could get away with that. This one might be addressed in the future, but it is a valid point to raise.

[cantab]

The IVAs on the new spaceplane parts are indeed just black spaces. IMHO Squad did drop a clanger here, because it looks so like there's a bug. They should have put a placeholder. Just literally a box with "There is no IVA here, sorry" would have done.

Yes, I want bigger xenon tanks too. Ion clusters are viable for larger ships, except the needed xenon will spike the part count.

Landing gear is in development, it missed .90 but we'll hopefully see it in .91.

Refuelling stuff that's landed was made much simpler with the claw. No need to line anything up precisely, just drive the fuel truck into the vehicle it's filling up.

Explorable IVAs would be awesome, but also a LOT of work for Squad. Just regular IVAs are a lot of work.

[Tw1]

This would be REALLY hard to do and is honestly something I think is above the level of the Squad devs. You have to consider that each part would have to have its own full 360 degree fully interactive IVA that then can link up and interact with another module right beside it via an open hatch. The level of complexity, the memory bloat, and rendering power would potentially be astronomical. KSP needs more optimization before this can even come onto the table. Even still, I think its asking a bit much. Cool as it is, the implementation difficulties are huge.

True, but it would've been so awesome. KSP could have been an adventurous space experience, but instead the devs choose to spend the memory on things that are only going to be there for so long, then upgraded away.

[Captain Sierra]

True, but it would've been so awesome. KSP could have been an adventurous space experience, but instead the devs choose to spend the memory on things that are only going to be there for so long, then upgraded away.

At first I tried to come up with a logical, witty response to this, but I can't argue with the truth, harsh as that may or may not be.