Why is there a conflict of interest at all between realistic and unrealistic aerodynamics?

[Accelerando]

These thoughts are related to the poll on aerodynamics and backwards compatibility, but I feel like they warrant their own thread because I don't see them reiterated too often, or at least I lose them in the tides of ranting about how cheaty autopilots are and subjects along those lines, and I'd like to organize them here for others to see.

I don't really see the need that Squad feels to fixate on maintaining a "balance" between realistic and unrealistic aerodynamics in the update(s) to come. The idea of throwing out at least FAR-level realistic aerodynamics in favor of a limited definition of "fun" seems silly to me. For one, you can make crazy-looking contraptions fly in FAR, too, albeit not as overtly brick-shaped; but there are other reasons.

EDIT: I failed to address this reason the first time around, so I'll include it here as well for posterity.

If the atmosphere becomes more "realistic", whatever that means, given the dimensions of Kerbin, then there needs to be a lot more feedback and information from the game, such that players can do things, and see the results of those things, and have some idea of what happened and why it happened.

the worst situation in Kerbal Space Program, is looking at a failed flight, and not knowing why things happened that way.

Aircraft flips at high speed due to breaking the sound barrier ? well you have to know that there is a sound barrier, and why breaking it made the aircraft flip, and that sort of thing isn't shown in the game. All you'd see currently, is the aircraft flip, possibly breaking up, with little information as to why.

Yes! This touches on something that I've been thinking about, too, and that I've given severely little thought to in the OP of this thread - that one of the great appeals of the game, and one of the ways in which its potential seems, in my opinion, the most severely neglected, is its potential to educate, and the potential fun that that is.

When I first started playing in the early, early days of KSP - back in the first releases when it was a free game - I had no idea how orbits were achieved, or that there was anything such as an optimal flight profile that could be achieved by throttling the engines backward or forward; I had no idea that rockets are supposed to fly east to get the greatest speed boost from their planet's rotation, if counterclockwise; I had no idea that a rocket's fuel efficiency could be neatly and easily described by a single number, Isp, and that I could use a simple equation to give me a rough idea of their "range". I had to learn all of this, and it was fun, and the reason I could do any of that and have any of that fun was because the way rockets behaved and behave now in the game is realistic in some way - it wasn't simply a hard game mechanic, like learning to grapple with Dwarf Fortress's arcane control system. I actually -learned- something! Why shouldn't this figure into peoples' considerations of fun?

But at the same time, and to address your point - as the game grows in complexity, it helps greatly to increase the amount of feedback, the amount of instrumentation, the amount of data and analysis the game gives to the player, in order to help them understand and make sense of what's going on around them. For example, I remember hearing something from HarvesteR along the lines of refusing to implement a delta-V readout or a set of aerodynamics readouts and instruments because "it's not fun to know everything about your rocket"; but that is not true and not good gameplay. It simply creates an artificial obstruction for players who want to learn the real physics, and makes the game seem more obtuse and arcane to players who are unfamiliar with such concepts.

EDIT 2: As a further example, take the orbital Map view and all the data that it currently provides. The orbital map provides fairly plentiful information on your orbital characteristics, and by doing so, it allows me to set clear goals for myself and understand whether or not my maneuvers have succeeded - and by looking at the ∆V left, at the inclination and dimensions of my orbit with regards to the planet, the ecliptic, other orbits, and suchlike, I can understand why they did or didn't succeed. If the game didn't have these readouts, it would not be more fun - it would be infinitely more frustrating. The fact is, I need to know this data anyway if I am going to advance my understanding of the gameplay; you can't just thrust randomly in space and expect to "hit" Duna without knowledge of phase angles, much less knowledge of the dimensions of your very orbit. Likewise, I think that providing better, clearer, and more insightful instrumentation and data for all other aspects of the game - some kind of ruler in the vehicle assembly building and spaceplane hanger would be muchly welcomed, for instance - will open up far more opportunities for education and creativity than denying them to players. It is infinitely more enlightening to be able to see your orbit grow and shrink, and to be able to watch the numbers go up and down for its periapsis, phase angle, and so on, at the same time, than to simply watch a blue curve move around a planet, or even worse to have no orbital display at all.

And it's not as if people don't run out of fuel even though they know their rocket's delta-V, or crash aircraft even though they have all the readouts anyway - people run out fuel all the time in cars IRL that don't deplete their supply in such unintuitive ways, and people crash test aircraft in real life even though they have plenty of computer data. Knowing and being able to keep track of more or less how much range you can expect out of a car or the flight characteristics of an aircraft does not make driving a car or flying a plane less fun! But not being able to know without running the calculations yourself or installing a mod does make it more frustrating for people who want to be able to learn.

It certainly helped me a lot when I started using MechJeb in .17 and I could begin turning to its readouts to learn about phase angles and watch my delta-V fall. So yes - it's definitely very helpful, very educational, and fun to play the game with realistic elements for the purposes of learning, and it definitely helps and increases that fun to have bountiful data available on my flights! And if you want a challenge, you can go without the instrumentation - but just because you've played it long enough for that to be a challenge doesn't mean that that's the only challenge there is, or that's worth undertaking.

Career mode as-is currently doesn't allow a huge amount of room for creativity in terms of the overall shape of a rocket; generally, the most favorable shape you can build a launcher for a low mass and 18 parts in is the shape of a fairly believable pole(s) of varying dimensions, and this seems to be what most people end up building anyway - the kind of shapes you might expect from a real rocket, barring things like lack of nose cones. The main reason people don't include nosecones is, to my knowledge, that they simply don't have any use other than aesthetics yet. Aside from that, none of this changes if new aerodynamics are introduced.

Outside of Youtube videos, certain challenges, and the creations of Whackjob and his imitators and people like him, flying bricks if anything have seemed more of a rarity to me than a common feature of Kerbal design among players; KSP's part-tree construction mechanics and limited stock construction tools and unclear indicators don't lend themselves very easily to extremely unorthodox contraptions for casual players, and anyway many people seem to prefer sleek or otherwise Believableâ„¢ aerodynamic shapes for vehicles that are meant to operate in, you know, the air. The undying popularity of the spaceplane SSTO and the space shuttle-esque design, as well as endless Saturn V and Soyuz replicas and generally rod-shaped lifters that litter the Spacecraft Exchange and the add-ons sections attest to this.

And if you really want to build that rocket of Whackjobian ambition, what's to say you can't? Rockets made in Real Solar System demonstrate that it's perfectly possible to build insane, hulking contraptions even under realistic aerodynamics; just look at this monster:

Or this one:

And there's no shortage of strange-looking IRL designs that could inspire wacky contraptions under new aerodynamics. The VVA-14 even resembles some of Cupcake's machines. Or just build them in, y'know, space, where there is no air to stop you. I'm sure any Whackjobians among us would be more than up to the task of designing the lifters that can take the craziest huge monsters up into LKO; half of Whackjob's own repertoire was monstrously huge launchers of various shapes and sizes anyway.

So again, why is this even considered an issue? Does it have something to do with the devs' somewhat down-putting statements on realism, in the idea that it fundamentally isn't fun but has to be tamed, as opposed to un-realism? It seems to color their announcements with regards to game mechanics, at least.

I remember that thing HarvesteR said a while back along the lines of how if you wanted to play a perfectly realistic game, you'd go outside. But how many of us can actually reasonably expect to go out and be able to fly a spaceship tomorrow? Very few if any; much as most FIFA players can't expect to go outside and start a career in pro football tomorrow, or how most Tycoon players can't expect to go outside and start growing a business to massive proportions; you get the idea. I think it is neither un-fun nor unrealistic to gloss over certain grating parts of the challenge or leave it up to someone else or a background mechanic to take care of; leaders and executives in real life do this all the time, for one. There's clearly elements of real life that are fun and people want to do, and ways to present them so as to skip over the parts people don't want to do.

I don't deny that there are ways to design a game with certain elements that work better or worse than others, but why continually talk about realism (or believability, if you prefer) as if it's an elephant in the room? Sure, there are things you might implement that aren't very fun for many people, but there's plenty of opportunity for pitfalls if you're designing a game without a mind to believability, too. I don't think we should say that, for instance, if I wanted to play a perfectly unrealistic game, I should quit KSP and try lucid dreaming.

On a final note, I'll reiterate what I think is a pretty great post by Jofwu in the "Should Squad drop backwards compatibility" thread, which summarizes pretty well what I'm aiming to convey in terms of the relationship between "realism" and fun:

The primary concern seems to be "fun." And I think that's a very noble concern. KSP is fun. KSP is a game. I don't think anyone wants for KSP to become a hardcore space flight simulator. But that doesn't mean it can't be realistic and fun! Just look at the rest of the game as it already is. Within reason, space flight works like it should. It's realistic. It's physics. Does this prove difficult for new players? Sure. Does it prevent you from flying around the solar system willy nilly? Yep. But that has never stopped people from having fun. Heck, for many I believe that the realism is what makes KSP so fun and rewarding.

You can read the rest of their post here.

EDIT 3: And since I seem to be getting some confusion about whether or not I believe SQUAD should focus on implementing "realism" in the sense of "you have to model and manually take care of every blast of wind, every fart and every ounce of fuel moving in the tanks," I will reiterate here something I posted later in the thread:

I never said anything about having to explicitly deal with every fine minor detail of rocket construction and launch - I have even, multiple times, explicitly supported the "armchair commander" model of flight control and voiced my dissent against simply requiring the player to push every possible button at every second of the mission, give an alternative, and explain why this is neither un-fun nor unrealistic. Even in real life, not every person in mission control has to worry about every other aspect of a rocket's systems or its flight plan in order to be able to do their part, operate the controls, and make it work. Everyone splits off some work somewhere; that's true of any job. There's nothing fundamentally incompatible between making a game realistic and choosing the elements of realism you want to include and in what way to implement them that they'll be fun.

Tater demonstrates my own view of the use of this strawman of "realism players" against others very well:

As every proponent of having things be as realistic as feasible within a game says in every one of these threads, no one is asking for "true realism." The "you'd have to be NASA," or "you'd have to model bathroom breaks for Jeb," or "you'd have to model the office workers in the admin building standing around waiting to go home" straw men arguments need to just stop. No one is arguing for what anyone characterizing the "realism crowd" says they are.

Squad is removing the awful, placeholder atmosphere model, that is a given. their goal is to have it more realistic than it is now, also a given. Many of us want them to do it as well as they can within the limits of having the game run smoothly, that's it.

Please discuss.

Edited January 16, 2015 by Accelerando

[Parkaboy]

There are many people on the forums convinced that the key to KSP's success is that it is more realistic than other space games, which, they tend to conclude, means the game should strive to become as realistic as possible, and that would only increase its popularity. That's a fallacy, since other more realistic space sims (such as Orbiter) aren't as popular as KSP.

What the devs aim for is rather a sweetspot between realism and fun (closer to realism than to "arcade"), a stylized simulation. But people cringe at the idea of a stylized simulation, as if we could only have sims that are perfectly faithful to reality, and don't really understand the difference between a simulator and a simulation game, which is a gaming genre and not a learning/research tool. For these people, anything shorter than what NASA uses to train astronauts is "arcadey", which makes me wonder if they ever played an arcade game.

[Johnny Wishbone]

Below represents my opinion and is probably worth less than 2 cents.

The quest for realism in video games is what is killing video games. I think of it like a slider with "Fun" on one end and "Realism" on the other end. As the slider continues to move towards the "Realism" end, the amount of "Fun" decreases. The best example of this is the Grand Theft Auto series of games. GTA San Andreas was a hell of a lot of fun to play with an appropriate amount of realism (driving, flying, shooting, etc). The subsequent games in the series: GTA IV and GTA V are a lot less fun to play because the game designers tried to focus more on making them more realistic and therefore less fun. I don't want my cousin calling me every 5 minutes to go bowling. I don't want to hop in a stolen car and have to feather the throttle out of fear the wheels will spin out and send me into a ditch; I just wanna mash the gas and go. That's fun.

There is a fine balance between "Realism" and "Fun". KSP currently has that, although I do believe it is starting to trend more towards realism in the last couple releases. This means the "Fun" is decreasing as a result of the slider being moved the opposite way. I don't know how far it can go that way before I no longer find it fun to play, but I hope it doesn't come to that. Of course, my "Fun" threshold is going to be different from everyone else. So, I may give up on the game when you still find it fun to play. The goal needs to be finding that right balance for the majority of players.

[Parkaboy]

I don't think it its as simple as a slider between fun and realistic, but I do agree that there's a point where increasing realism causes fun to drop. So yes, it's a balancing act.

[Accelerando]

There are many people on the forums convinced that the key to KSP's success is that it is more realistic than other space games, which, they tend to conclude, means the game should strive to become as realistic as possible, and that would only increase its popularity. That's a fallacy, since other more realistic space sims (such as Orbiter) aren't as popular as KSP.

What the devs aim for is rather a sweetspot between realism and fun (closer to realism than to "arcade"), a stylized simulation. But people cringe at the idea of a stylized simulation, as if we could only have sims that are perfectly faithful to reality, and don't really understand the difference between a simulator and a simulation game, which is a gaming genre and not a learning/research tool. For these people, anything shorter than what NASA uses to train astronauts is "arcadey", which makes me wonder if they ever played an arcade game.

I'm not sure I believe that that's really a great motivating factor for the KSP devs. Not that it can't be, although I'm not sure if it is; but it doesn't seem like a good one. Because from what I've seen the vast majority of active speakers on the forum cry foul when you mention autopilots, for instance, much less realism in general; the consensus seems to be, at least in my experience, that there are elements of real life that are worth putting into a game and make it fun, much as Jofwu iterates in their post. I have no problem with this myself, but I do take issue with the seemingly common notion that there needs to be a balance between realism and fun, juxtaposing those words as if to say that they are immovable polar opposites on a sliding scale. It seems unfair to me, or at least poorly worded, especially if these players you speak of are a significant enough minority to want to reach out to.

Below represents my opinion and is probably worth less than 2 cents.

The quest for realism in video games is what is killing video games. I think of it like a slider with "Fun" on one end and "Realism" on the other end. As the slider continues to move towards the "Realism" end, the amount of "Fun" decreases. The best example of this is the Grand Theft Auto series of games. GTA San Andreas was a hell of a lot of fun to play with an appropriate amount of realism (driving, flying, shooting, etc). The subsequent games in the series: GTA IV and GTA V are a lot less fun to play because the game designers tried to focus more on making them more realistic and therefore less fun. I don't want my cousin calling me every 5 minutes to go bowling. I don't want to hop in a stolen car and have to feather the throttle out of fear the wheels will spin out and send me into a ditch; I just wanna mash the gas and go. That's fun.

There is a fine balance between "Realism" and "Fun". KSP currently has that, although I do believe it is starting to trend more towards realism in the last couple releases. This means the "Fun" is decreasing as a result of the slider being moved the opposite way. I don't know how far it can go that way before I no longer find it fun to play, but I hope it doesn't come to that. Of course, my "Fun" threshold is going to be different from everyone else. So, I may give up on the game when you still find it fun to play. The goal needs to be finding that right balance for the majority of players.

I don't think it its as simple as a slider between fun and realistic, but I do agree that there's a point where increasing realism causes fun to drop. So yes, it's a balancing act.

WRT John's post, I vehemently disagree that there is some kind of "sliding scale"; that's what I was trying to say in my OP. And in general - obviously there are elements of real life that are more or less fun to implement and ways to combine them that are more fun or less than others. But it's the same with unrealism; you could have a space game where pressing any key instanlty moves you 3000 light-years in any direction, but without any coordination of such elements it's going to be hell to play! It's all a matter of game design, which it's great that the devs seem to want to keep in mind, but seems unfair to single out realism as being the cause of trouble on this part, much less on the subject of aerodynamics for not only these reasons but the purely KSP gameplay-related ones I mentioned above.

So yeah, @Parkaboy and in general, that's true, it's not the amount that matters; it's what you pick and how you use it. Something along those lines.

Edited January 15, 2015 by Accelerando
Edited in Parkaboy's second post for completeness

[Parkaboy]

I have no problem with this myself, but I do take issue with the seemingly common notion that there needs to be a balance between realism and fun, juxtaposing those words as if to say that they are immovable polar opposites on a sliding scale. It seems unfair to me, or at least poorly worded, especially if these players you speak of are a significant enough minority to want to reach out to.

I actually agree with you on this. I guess you didn't see my previous comment before posting. It's not as simple as a slider, but of course every game that deals with representative elements (which is the case of simulation games), is a compromise between a simplified mechanic with clearly defined goals and parameters, and the reality from which it takes some elements. But I've been hearing the realism advocates here defending that there's no such thing as compromising realism - one can't take a few elements from reality and leave others, they say. For them, the game can only be fun if it is realistic - when in actuality, it (or the opposite) can't possibly be that simple.

[Tw1]

Realisticness is pretty much the main thing that makes KSP stand out from many other space games. It's a chance to try your hand at facing the real issues of spaceship design and flight planning, and it will be the closest most of us get to experiencing a visit to another planet.

That said, I think the real problem here is how the issue has been framed- as fun vs realism. A better way for us (and maybe the Devs) to view it would be to picture it not as fun vs realism, but as working out how detailed the realism should be to bring out the game's potential.

I don't think many want to be assembling every valve and circuit within a ship, though someone somewhere had to design them for real spacecraft. We use patched conics rather than n-body physics for orbits. Even far doesn't model every last detail of real aerodynamics, and has reasons for doing so.

It's just a case of how close to real life it has to go to make a good game. A few details have to be left out, a few details have to be changed to make sure it works well as a game.

I also think it's important to note fun is subjective. My idea of fun is careful, deliberate missions with lots of things to explore and discover at the destination.

Others might prefer racing through missions and rallying up large amounts of computer points. I think rather than focusing on an idea fun, it would be more worth linking about it in terms of experiences and opportunities.

Edited January 15, 2015 by Tw1

[Alshain]

There are many people on the forums convinced that the key to KSP's success is that it is more realistic than other space games, which, they tend to conclude, means the game should strive to become as realistic as possible, and that would only increase its popularity. That's a fallacy, since other more realistic space sims (such as Orbiter) aren't as popular as KSP.

What the devs aim for is rather a sweetspot between realism and fun (closer to realism than to "arcade"), a stylized simulation. But people cringe at the idea of a stylized simulation, as if we could only have sims that are perfectly faithful to reality, and don't really understand the difference between a simulator and a simulation game, which is a gaming genre and not a learning/research tool. For these people, anything shorter than what NASA uses to train astronauts is "arcadey", which makes me wonder if they ever played an arcade game.

That is an incorrect statement. More accurately, there are many people on the forum that are convinced that realism in the aerodynamics engine is just more fun.

[Johnny Wishbone]

WRT John's post, I vehemently disagree that there is some kind of "sliding scale"...

I guess I touched a nerve. I wasn't expecting vehement disagreement.

As my disclaimer said, my post is my opinion. My opinion is based on my personal experiences with games in general. I personally do see it as simple as a slider between "Fun" and "Realism" because my personal experience with games is such that more "realistic" games are less "fun" for me to play. I'm not saying that is the case with everyone, or even that it should be.

In the case of KSP, as I have seen the game become more "realistic", it has become less "fun" for me to play. I still play because my "fun" threshold is high enough with this game that the "realism" changes haven't killed the "fun" for me. I'm waiting to see how the new aerodynamic changes will affect that. If they changes make it more "realistic" than I enjoy, then I'll stop having fun playing this game and will probably stop playing it or just continue playing an older version. But that's just me. I understand that a lot of people are looking forward to the newer, more realistic stock aerodynamics. But I'm not going to campaign against it just because I don't think it is necessary (especially since there are several mods for that already). Like I said earlier, a balance needs to be found.

[Accelerando]

I actually agree with you on this. I guess you didn't see my previous comment before posting. It's not as simple as a slider, but of course every game that deals with representative elements (which is the case of simulation games), is a compromise between a simplified mechanic with clearly defined goals and parameters, and the reality from which it takes some elements. But I've been hearing the realism advocates here defending that there's no such thing as compromising realism - one can't take a few elements from reality and leave others, they say. For them, the game can only be fun if it is realistic - when in actuality, it (or the opposite) can't possibly be that simple.

That's true, and I edited your second post in to account for that, since it lined up very well with what I was saying to John. I personally consider it more than realistic to simply kick back behind an armchair and direct someone or something else to move their arms to push the controls of a faraway vehicle; real pilots do it with drones today. I've never heard anyone criticize, for instance, Dwarf Fortress for being unrealistic by not forcing players to manually carry out calculations for moving every pint of blood in every artery of every animal in order to advance the wildlife simulation going on around them; it just happens, as is realistic and as is conducive to gameplay. Such players' opinions lie in a different arena of realism, I think, rather than being a matter of simply more realism.

Even then, on SQUAD's part, why make aerodynamics out to be a pressing issue when it clearly isn't? Better aerodynamics have been asked for many, many times, and it's been clear for years now that the game is long overdue for an update in this regard; I remember when shortly after absorbing C7 onto the team it was suggested that an aerodynamics overhaul would be coming soon for the benefit of spaceplane builders, and I recall the same sentiment from some time around the releases of .16 and .17. Now that it's been years and FAR, Real Solar System and similar mods have long been established and gained popularity, and it's long been clear that new updates might break saves and old aspects of gameplay that are now obsolete, now there is suddenly a controversy? Why? Over what? It's not just the realism hardliners who've been asking for this, I'm sure; it's one of those features like multiplayer that people just expect. And it's clearly not going to destroy any wells of creativity that weren't already powerful enough to weather changes already. If anything, adding realistic aerodynamics will make it far easier for people to design insane contraptions, simply by lowering the delta-V by a staggering 1K m/s and enabling huge launches to orbit.

[EdFred]

It's not a disagreement between the current aero, and a re-vamped aero. It's that certain groups of people (usually described in a negative context) don't like change. If it wasn't aero that was being proposed as being overhauled and something else, the same types of people would cry about that instead. Look at the whining that went on with the new space plane parts and the removal of the old ones.

Edited January 15, 2015 by EdFred

[tater]

The notion that realism and fun are somehow diametrically opposed is absurd, I'd argue that they are not even related. Good game design is good game design, what that math looks like under the hood in terms of equations of motion has little impact, and honestly if things behave grossly differently than reality, it is confusing.

[Johnny Wishbone]

The notion that realism and fun are somehow diametrically opposed is absurd, I'd argue that they are not even related. Good game design is good game design, what that math looks like under the hood in terms of equations of motion has little impact, and honestly if things behave grossly differently than reality, it is confusing.

I vehemently disagree.

I get enough realism in my life; I play games to escape that. Games that thrust "realism" back on me are less fun to play. To me, realism and fun are very much opposed. I'm not saying that is true for everyone, but I certainly don't think that is an absurd notion.

Maybe the contentious point here is our definitions of "realism".

[r4pt0r]

I have fun in Arcade flight games like Ace combat, and I have fun in realistic flight games like IL-2.

.90 is my first version playing with non stock aerodynamics, FAR to be precise, and the game isn't any less fun at all.

And there should be no worry about ksp's aerodynamics becoming "Too realistic" and thus "un-fun". I highly doubt squad will model things like crosswinds on takeoff/landing, ground effect lift, thermals over hotspots, updrafts from mountains and such, ect...

VVV Basically I agree with lajoswinkler's post below VVV

Edited January 15, 2015 by r4pt0r

[lajoswinkler]

After installing FAR for the first time in 0.9, I think it should become stock. It is not less fun at all.

[Accelerando]

Realisticness is pretty much the main thing that makes KSP stand out from many other space games. It's a chance to try your hand at facing the real issues of spaceship design and flight planning, and it will be the closest most of us get to experiencing a visit to another planet.

That said, I think the real problem here is how the issue has been framed- as fun vs realism. A better way for us (and maybe the Devs) to view it would be to picture it not as fun vs realism, but as working out how detailed the realism should be to bring out the game's potential.

I don't think many want to be assembling every valve and circuit within a ship, though someone somewhere had to design them for real spacecraft. We use patched conics rather than n-body physics for orbits. Even far doesn't model every last detail of real aerodynamics, and has reasons for doing so.

It's just a case of how close to real life it has to go to make a good game. A few details have to be left out, a few details have to be changed to make sure it works well as a game.

I also think it's important to note fun is subjective. My idea of fun is careful, deliberate missions with lots of things to explore and discover at the destination.

Others might prefer racing through missions and rallying up large amounts of computer points. I think rather than focusing on an idea fun, it would be more worth linking about it in terms of experiences and opportunities.

The notion that realism and fun are somehow diametrically opposed is absurd, I'd argue that they are not even related. Good game design is good game design, what that math looks like under the hood in terms of equations of motion has little impact, and honestly if things behave grossly differently than reality, it is confusing.

Yes. And on that note:

I guess I touched a nerve. I wasn't expecting vehement disagreement.

As my disclaimer said, my post is my opinion. My opinion is based on my personal experiences with games in general. I personally do see it as simple as a slider between "Fun" and "Realism" because my personal experience with games is such that more "realistic" games are less "fun" for me to play. I'm not saying that is the case with everyone, or even that it should be.

In the case of KSP, as I have seen the game become more "realistic", it has become less "fun" for me to play. I still play because my "fun" threshold is high enough with this game that the "realism" changes haven't killed the "fun" for me. I'm waiting to see how the new aerodynamic changes will affect that. If they changes make it more "realistic" than I enjoy, then I'll stop having fun playing this game and will probably stop playing it or just continue playing an older version. But that's just me. I understand that a lot of people are looking forward to the newer, more realistic stock aerodynamics. But I'm not going to campaign against it just because I don't think it is necessary (especially since there are several mods for that already). Like I said earlier, a balance needs to be found.

You didn't touch any nerves; I simply disagree very strongly with your point. There's no furor here.

And while I can understand that you find from experience that the increments of realism KSP has added put it along a line between more and less fun, I don't agree that that's fundamentally a problem of them being realistic. Certain elements of realism at the very least are fundamental to a good gameplay experience; real-life mission controllers wouldn't want a spacecraft that's impossible to control, for instance, or on the other hand that requires every last ounce of a person's concentration to pilot it by hand on the way up, manually turning valves and levers in the rocket to fine-control every last subsystem to the highest possible degree of micromanagement. Yet this doesn't make realism fundamentally fun, as you know for yourself. But likewise, realism isn't fundamentally un-fun, either.

I understand that it's your opinion and your own personal taste in gameplay that massive amounts of realism don't amount to more fun, but I feel it's unfair or at least needlessly limiting to talk about it as a simple sliding scale for general purposes. That, for the most part, is what I want to say with regards to the matter of "realism vs. fun".

It's not a disagreement between the current aero, and a re-vamped aero. It's that certain groups of people (usually described in a negative context) don't like change. If it wasn't aero that was being proposed as being overhauled and something else, the same types of people would cry about that instead. Look at the whining that went on with the new space plane parts and the removal of the old ones.

I feel that, yeah.

[Itsdavyjones]

The main changes that stock will be getting for aerodynamics is that cargo bays and nose cones will work properly, making it more efficient to place nose cones/cargo bays/fairings.

[Kurld]

The notion that realism and fun are somehow diametrically opposed is absurd. . . and honestly if things behave grossly differently than reality, it is confusing.

This sums up my feelings very well. I've played with "space planes" almost not at all because the implementation was so non-intuitive and impenetrable.

[Parkaboy]

That is an incorrect statement. More accurately, there are many people on the forum that are convinced that realism in the aerodynamics engine is just more fun.

It was a poorly phrased statement. I oversimplified things when I implied that "fun" and "realism" were diametrically opposed, when I do think that it's more complicated than that. But the opposite idea - that increased realism automatically equals increased fun - is equally fallacious. I'm okay with people enjoying more realism - but the assumption that only complete realism is enjoyable is ridiculous. Should we remove time warp and do all missions in real time? Some of the arguments I hear imply this sort of conclusion.

[Johnny Wishbone]

You didn't touch any nerves; I simply disagree very strongly with your point. There's no furor here.

And while I can understand that you find from experience that the increments of realism KSP has added put it along a line between more and less fun, I don't agree that that's fundamentally a problem of them being realistic. Certain elements of realism at the very least are fundamental to a good gameplay experience; real-life mission controllers wouldn't want a spacecraft that's impossible to control, for instance, or on the other hand that requires every last ounce of a person's concentration to pilot it by hand on the way up, manually turning valves and levers in the rocket to fine-control every last subsystem to the highest possible degree of micromanagement. Yet this doesn't make realism fundamentally fun, as you know for yourself. But likewise, realism isn't fundamentally un-fun, either.

I understand that it's your opinion and your own personal taste in gameplay that massive amounts of realism don't amount to more fun, but I feel it's unfair or at least needlessly limiting to talk about it as a simple sliding scale for general purposes. That, for the most part, is what I want to say with regards to the matter of "realism vs. fun".

I feel that, yeah.

I know there isn't furor. The smily kerbal emoticon after my statment was an attempt to show that I'm trying to make a tongue-in-cheek comment to keep things light.

Like I said in a follow up post, I think the contentious issue may be our difference in definition of "realism". I totally agree with your statement that "Certain elements of realism at the very least are fundamental to a good gameplay experience". However, when too many of those elements are used to make a game more realistic, to me, it becomes less fun and that is what links the two concepts. Its the level of "realism" and the definition of what is "realistic" that differs between people and makes this an issue. Everyones definition will be different and in my case, it does affect the fun I have.

[tater]

I think realism and fun are mostly not connected. In the case of KSP, having some aspects behave as one would expect in the real universe is easier, regardless of the care it might take to build or fly any particular rocket. As a noob (I started in August) I expected reentry to be meaningful, for example. There are nosecone parts, so I added them, etc. It stood to reason that they should matter. I had to learn that in KSP they did not (a lesson I never actually took to heart, I wasted the mass anyway).

I then added FAR, KIS, DRE. I honestly have not even noticed any of them aside from intentionally doing some destructive testing once I installed them to see how they worked. I've lost exactly 1 capsule to DRE, and that was toast anyway (I deorbited it failing to realize I had put neither a heat shield, nor parachute on the craft (it was an orbital tug with a Mk1-2).

The type of trope you trot out, "If you want complete realism you must not use time compression" or "realism would mean you shoot yourself in a FPS game if you get shot" is just silly. It's a straw man, and I'm sure you know that. No one is, or has suggested anything remotely close to that. What we want are somewhat realistic outcomes, and a realistic feel. Watching a pancake held together with struts blow through the sound barrier at 2000m alt doesn't feel realistic, it feels silly.

[Alshain]

It was a poorly phrased statement. I oversimplified things when I implied that "fun" and "realism" were diametrically opposed, when I do think that it's more complicated than that. But the opposite idea - that increased realism automatically equals increased fun - is equally fallacious. I'm okay with people enjoying more realism - but the assumption that only complete realism is enjoyable is ridiculous. Should we remove time warp and do all missions in real time? Some of the arguments I hear imply this sort of conclusion.

It's not fallacious. It's opinion, and everyone has one. My point is, those wanting realism in the aerodynamics aren't interested in KSP success over other simulators like Orbiter. They (we) are interesting in what we perceive as fun. Your premise was not mis-phrased, it was incorrect.

[Levelord]

The aerodynamics issue is a red herring and that simply making it more realistic isn't going to suddenly make all the problems of the game disappear. If fun is the real incentive, then the real issue comes from the tedium of the career mode when it becomes grindy, repetitive and boring.

However seeing that Squad plans on overhauling the stock aero to something better next patch, I'd place my trust in them in finding the right balance of realism and enough Kraken-y whackyness to enable crazy designs to get off the launchpad. I personally don't believe it's the place for FAR fans to pressure SQUAD to make the aerodynamics exactly like FAR claiming it to be 'fun' and that everyone else is not having fun unless they are using FAR. Implying that the people who choose to play stock are too stupid to know better.

[Liowen]

I feel there isn't a conflict between realistic and unrealistic aerodynamics, however where the conflict is what is fun for an individual player. There is this idea floating around that if everyone ONLY had X it would be fun, but they are basing this notion on what they feel is fun to them and others who think like they do. This is where the break down occurs, in my opinion of course, as both sides are fighting to be absolutely right about how everyone should have fun. I have tried using FAR and found it to be too much of "spreadsheet" simulator for my liking, but does this make it not fun for everyone? Of course not there are lots of people who enjoy looking at those kind of things and that is ok, for them just not having it is ok for me as well. I even used NEAR and found that launches were excessively boring; launch up, start to tip over, turn off SAS, and watch tv until the rocket is where I want it to be. Maybe if I did more with planes I would "see the light", but again I do not find flying planes enjoyable I prefer making rockets. But that is just me and what I enjoy if you do not enjoy it I am fine you disagree, however when other players state "FAR SHOULD BE IN THE GAME AND FORCE EVERYONE TO PLAY THIS WAY" (Not all those who use it are this way just vocal minority are) and the other side goes off is when it turns into a conflict. It has nothing to do with realistic and unrealistic, but what individual players believe would be fun for all based on what they like.

[gmiddlemass]

What Liowen has said above (I won't bother to quote the whole post as it ca easily be read) pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter too.

People are just too different for everyone to agree on the subject, some will like the ultra real or more complex approach, others will be happier with a more simplified version and neither opinion is any more right or wrong than the other.

We should just be thankful that Squad made the game so easy to mod so that we can tailor it to our individual needs.