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

[Hannu]

I just feel that most of the opinions here for realism seems to stem from a more selfish need to mold the game to their own specific view of their modded game, without regard for if it actually make the game more enjoyable or tedious for others.

Of course they are selfish, as all wishes. It is only way the players can tell what they want.

SQUAD so far has a very good track record at progressing the game and making the majority of us happy with what they've included, so I'm quite comfortable placing my trust in them to keep the game going in their image.

It has been very easy to make people happy, because there are very small number of newtonian space flight games. Therefore every interested people have been forced to play KSP and it is better than nothing (and in my opinion, very good game even it is too childish and easy to be perfect for me). But it seems clear that there can be markets for few other games too. One could be as realistic as practically possible, which do now even try to get large success. Like Orbiter with capability to build ships and have technical resource managing and more other game elements. And one could maybe be very entertaining easy game with very polished graphics, explosions and so called fun stuff (maybe some large company will make it, when they see that KSP is economic success). And KSP would be between them.

But I do not see the reason to fears and protests against realism. Most parts of the realism is very easy to program compared to graphical things, so that do not delay game development significantly. Realism is also very easy to config out. You can just change initial values by using couple of multipliers and game is as easy as you want. You give more ISP and thrust, so that player can choose transfers freely and use smaller and simpler ships. You adjust consumption of living and other resources to zero and forget them. You cancel out nasty aerodynamic effects and re-entry heating and forget them etc.

Then there are some people who want to play hard mode, because they want to feel themselves geniuses, but they whine that game should still be easy. They are really selfish and idiots. But probably it would be able to name easy as hard mode and realistic mode as nerdy mode, which you can enable by adjusting config file. Nobody wants to be a nerd.

[comham]

Backwards compatibility can take a flying leap, all it does is impede any development progress

[Kegereneku]

The conflict of interest lies in thinking you can add any amount of features/complexity at no cost in term of fun/abstraction.

To me it seem that FAR/NEAR simply filled a void for a time.

However the nature of the void is subject to discussion.

It have to be said : there's many bias on the subject of "the importance of realism in game design"

First is the "I don't care for other players game experience" bias

Second is the Denning-Kruger "I must know better than everybody",

Third would be the belief that the realistic feature some want would work as they imagine it.

Next -quite popular- the belief of realism-fanatic that they could design & pilot realistic-looking/credible rocket and spaceplane if modder -like SQUAD- didn't worked their way around "details".

And a last one would be the belief that realism is what attract everyone to FAR and DR, rather than the (let's be frank) incomplete state of old-stock aero.

My little list is in no way representatives and just meant as a rhetoric argument.

Some will be tempted to "counter" my list with one from people "fearing realism", but remember that... some don't want MORE realism even if they knew better. I have myself academic knowledge in plane aerodynamic and design, yet I don't want to spend more than -say- 4 hours design-testing the most complex plane/rocket I'll ever build, and I want to launch pancake rocket (that are not necessarily less efficient).

To be known : Game-logic simplification is often the only reason you can have your cake and eat it without having to farm the grain, mill it/extract sugar/milk cow/process everything/take cooking lesson before having said cake.

And even then there will be people who want to have the cake OR eat it OR both OR prefer pancake, letting mod change cake variety, taste, moistness, method of delivery...

From the way HarversteR phrased the change I have total faith they know what they are doing, better in any case than the idiots "threatening" SQUAD to keep using mods if... they don't make them stock ?

What KSP is, is the fun common-base that is fun by itself for as many people as possible, while -hopefully- creating the anchor point for moder to build upon (if necessary).

And no, FAR can't be optional if it was stock. But would someone create a CLOSE mod for those seeking simplicity ?

Hence SQUAD endless search for a sweetspot.

[Jouni]

The conflict of interest lies in thinking you can add any amount of features/complexity at no cost in term of fun/abstraction.

Game design is always about balancing between adding more features and (emergent) complexity, and keeping the game simple enough and approachable enough. What distinguishes good game designers from the rest is their ability to make the game more complex without overwhelming the players.

With FAR, we've seen that it's possible to add more realistic aerodynamics to KSP, without making the game any less approachable. Some things are harder in FAR than with stock aerodynamics, while other things are easier, and many things are certainly different. The important thing is that KSP with FAR (and DRE) is a different game than the stock game. For me, it's also more interesting and more fun, because it adds new gameplay to places which the stock game ignores.

Realism in games has nothing to do with difficulty or (immediate) complexity. It's about making games similar enough to the reality that you can usually use your existing knowledge about the subject in the game. The correspondence works in the other direction as well. If you learn something new in the game, you haven't just learned some pointless game-specific knowledge, but something that helps you to understand the reality better. That's ultimately the reason why KSP is a good game.

Edited January 18, 2015 by Jouni
No more straw men

[sal_vager]

That's a strawman.

Please do not belittle other peoples comments with terms like "Strawman" if you do not understand them, thank you

The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. This sort of "reasoning" has the following pattern:

Person A has position X.

Person B presents position Y (which is a distorted version of X).

Person B attacks position Y.

Therefore X is false/incorrect/flawed.

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself. One might as well expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to hurt the person.

Examples of Straw Man

Prof. Jones: "The university just cut our yearly budget by $10,000."

Prof. Smith: "What are we going to do?"

Prof. Brown: "I think we should eliminate one of the teaching assistant positions. That would take care of it."

Prof. Jones: "We could reduce our scheduled raises instead."

Prof. Brown: " I can't understand why you want to bleed us dry like that, Jones."

"Senator Jones says that we should not fund the attack submarine program. I disagree entirely. I can't understand why he wants to leave us defenseless like that."

Bill and Jill are arguing about cleaning out their closets:

Jill: "We should clean out the closets. They are getting a bit messy."

Bill: "Why, we just went through those closets last year. Do we have to clean them out everyday?"

Jill: "I never said anything about cleaning them out every day. You just want too keep all your junk forever, which is just ridiculous."

[Crimson Sunrise]

SQUAD so far has a very good track record at progressing the game and making the majority of us happy with what they've included, so I'm quite comfortable placing my trust in them to keep the game going in their image.

Well, but there's also a certain number of people that aren't happy, but they can't do anything about it, since:

-They don't have time or skill to mod the game to suit their needs.

-They think that posting in the suggestions forum will actually make something happen.

-They don't have a choice, since there's nothing to compare against, which makes the game become a (not desired) measuring stick.

As far as my research goes, SQUAD is making the game they want to make, while making people think their input means anything in practice. The few dev blogs I've seen are a confusing mish-mash of beating around the bush and trying to sound as corporative and clever as possible, as well as parroting the same stuff on forums over and over again (ergo the KerbalEDU forums, where one of the staff members just posted everything the users knew already about it [otherwise the complain thread wouldn't even exist] only adding two lines of [in theory] new information to it).

[Levelord]

Well, but there's also a certain number of people that aren't happy, but they can't do anything about it, since:

-They don't have time or skill to mod the game to suit their needs.

-They think that posting in the suggestions forum will actually make something happen.

-They don't have a choice, since there's nothing to compare against, which makes the game become a (not desired) measuring stick.

As far as my research goes, SQUAD is making the game they want to make, while making people think their input means anything in practice. The few dev blogs I've seen are a confusing mish-mash of beating around the bush and trying to sound as corporative and clever as possible, as well as parroting the same stuff on forums over and over again (ergo the KerbalEDU forums, where one of the staff members just posted everything the users knew already about it [otherwise the complain thread wouldn't even exist] only adding two lines of [in theory] new information to it).

- They are asking for a mod to be implemented that these people might not agree on either

- Posting on the suggestion board is to give suggestions, not give demands

- Having realism junkies have their way also means that these same unhappy people won't have a choice anyway. For all you know their beef isn't about the realism, it might be about new parts for all we know.

I don't presume the realism junkies are arguing for the best interests of those guys either and aren't championing for some unheard voice.

Then there are a certain amount of people who won't be happy with anything and trying to please them would be hopelessly chasing a moving goal post. Look, it's clear that there are a lot of people who don't run FAR and NEAR for various reasons, because if those aero mods were so essential to making the game 'fun', everyone playing KSP would have made it a permanent install in their game. Which is not the case at all. It's not to say that they prefer the stock aero, but FAR is not what they are looking for either. I've installed and tried FAR since every major update since 0.18 where I found it causes more problems than it solves, then eventually uninstalling it every time. (I won't go into the details of it, because it'll just become a wall of text. But that's not the driving force of my posts here. I have nothing against FAR).

People here are asking for SQUAD to make an exact replica of FAR's mechanics rather than letting SQUAD figure out a better way of implementing the aero physics themselves. Then they also have this bizarre and narrow view that the only way to make the game more fun is to dial up the realism. Want more fun? Dial up the realism again, keep dialing up the realism to make it more fun. Realism is the absolute answer to the 'fun' problem we are having guys!

I like realism and support it, but I can also understand that KSP has taken some liberties with this realism for the sake of actual gameplay which is why most of us are here instead of with Orbiter. Planets are scaled down for the sake of gameplay, ion engines have ridiculous thrust for the sake of gameplay, n-body physics is absent for stability, engine sounds in space are for 'non-realistic immersion' reasons.

I'm also not convinced of some of the people here to be claiming to speak for everybody and insisting that they know better than SQUAD when it comes to making a game that's fun. They don't directly say it, but they deeply imply it.

All I'm claiming is for us to just sit back and see what happens with the update. Then we can fine tune it from there, like how we did with the SAS changes in 0.20.

[Hannu]

People here are asking for SQUAD to make an exact replica of FAR's mechanics rather than letting SQUAD figure out a better way of implementing the aero physics themselves. Then they also have this bizarre and narrow view that the only way to make the game more fun is to dial up the realism. Want more fun? Dial up the realism again, keep dialing up the realism to make it more fun. Realism is the absolute answer to the 'fun' problem we are having guys!

...

I'm also not convinced of some of the people here to be claiming to speak for everybody and insisting that they know better than SQUAD when it comes to making a game that's fun. They don't directly say it, but they deeply imply it.

I think that everybody knows better than SQUAD which things are fun for them personally. KSP, as every commercial product, are guesses what kind of compromise would sell most. It is not and it does not even try to be perfect for anybody, but good enough to as many as possible. I do not understand why it should not be allowed to discuss to what direction the game should be developed or give suggestions to developers. It is their business do they care or not. SQUAD have already shown, that sometimes they do care community's opinions. It is thing which I appreciate even if implemented suggestions are other than my wishes. It is much better to discuss and tell wishes before game has been developed. It is easier to make new things than change existing things.

What kind of realism is more fun is also personal opinion. But as I said, the realism is very easy to implement (to some reasonable level for gaming purpose, I do not mean real supersonic fluid dynamics or exact modeling of temperature and structural stress distributions of blades of high pressure gas turbines of rocket engine) and that kind of realism is also very easy to scale down for them who likes that realism is not fun. Programming of the realism of this kind of game does not need knowledge over advanced hobby level (maybe aerodynamics is only "difficult" thing, but maybe Ferram would sell his experience to SQUAD). And it would also be easy thing to scale down for Whackjob et al., who want to fly with extreme imaginative vessels. Implementing of all suggested reality things would probably need less work hours than one of the buildings in KSC. Therefore adding the realism and options to adjust it would be easy and cheap thing for developers to please large number of players.

[rynak]

I don't think the balancing is as easy as you portray it - sure, it is IMO a good idea to think less about if something should be simulated at all or not (that instead should more be a performance question), but instead more thinking about "how strongly" something is simulated. Part of what makes things like FAR difficult to some people, is that there is no option to tone it down, so that the effects are less pronounced.

The problem however is, that "toning it down" is not as trivial as it sounds. As good an approach it might be, it is dev hell of endless balancing. Keep in mind, that its not just aerodynamic behavior that is affected, but also overall performance of vessels. Ferram himself had to come up with something like KIDS, so that FAR and NEAR (and SDF) are no longer ridiculous with the stock kerbol system.

And even then, after you've gotten all that right, there's the performance of parts. In a well designed game, the different options the players have, each have their use and point in the game - for if an option is useless or almost identical to another, there is no reason to have it in the game. When you tweak aerodynamics, you might have to look at the different wing parts again, and balance those.

In summary, balancing this well in just an entire single version, would be an amazing feat. Unfortunatelly, i do not have high hopes that we'll see something really well balanced. I doubt they want to basically go over the whole game, and rebalance everything to fit.

Now imagine you offer multiple difficulty settings, by toning simulation of aspects up or down... then you have to balance not just for one case but as many as there are difficulty settings. And what about craft exchange? Does something designed for one difficulty setting, fly well in another?

Not gonna happen.

Edited January 18, 2015 by rynak

[Levelord]

Everybody knows what's fun for them personally, just not what is fun for everyone else as a whole.

That's the problem I'm bringing up with how people are trying to sell this as a 'good for me and by extension must be good for everyone else'. It's a complete lack consideration/empathy for other players or the community that's being constantly overlooked by these people. Highlighting that their idea might be a bit selfish with unconvincing reasoning is not the same as telling them they aren't allowed to have that opinion in the first place.

[Hannu]

In summary, balancing this well in just an entire single version, would be an amazing feat. Unfortunatelly, i do not have high hopes that we'll see something really well balanced. I doubt they want to basically go over the whole game, and rebalance everything to fit.

Balancing to please everybody or even most people is impossible. The problem is that KSP is practically only game in this genre and there are too many people with very different opinions what is good balance. But I think that SQUAD could made two or maybe three balanced stock modes. Probably easy "fun" mode and hard "realistic" would be enough. Maybe some medium mode for them who want to grind more money and science to proceed in game but do not want to get involved to complicated technical planning. If someone want to something else, he can adjust things and balance by himself.

And what about craft exchange? Does something designed for one difficulty setting, fly well in another?

Of course not. But probably players who want to exchange crafts could make an agreement to use stock difficulty settings. Of course I understand that you can not get everything at the same time.

[rynak]

I wasn't talking about balancing something for people yet, but merely balancing it so the various aspects of KSP work well with each other. Aero does not exist in a vacuum (pun intended).

[metl]

My personal experience with FAR and NEAR is that it is too much realism. Some people enjoy that, some do not. From a gameplay stance, I see no glaring issues with stock aerodynamics that just make the game "unfun." Is it realistic? Absolutely not. But it works. It accomplishes what it was designed to do. I might have a different attitude if I had studied physics or ever been a pilot, but as it sits I am a gamer playing a game designed to provide a lighthearted take on a space program, which it does very well. I don't want a "realism simulator." I want a game.

There is a point that has been overlooked in all of the talks about "who knows best." NASA has been watching KSP. Elon Musk has been watching KSP. KSP has an educational version being developed. KSP has crossed gaming boundaries not accomplished by hardly any "Realism simulators." I think Squad knows what is best for KSP, or we wouldn't be where we are now. Could they screw it up? Of course. But I think it is pure arrogance for some modders to think they know best.

[hansen]

I don't see the point of this discussion. Seriously, let squad make the game how they want it to be. With such a strong modding-community there is no reason to force certain design decisions. If the athmosperic model does not suit your play style replace it with a mod.

[haltux]

I guess it has been discussed millions of times, but:

My personal experience with FAR and NEAR is that it is too much realism. Some people enjoy that, some do not.

The only reason why anyone could find playing without FAR/NEAR less enjoyable than with FAR/NEAR is that their usual rocket do not work anymore. People got use to ludicrous rocket design, and they don't want to get rid of them. If you make a rocket which look like a rocket, FAR/NEAR does not increase difficulty at all, I don't see how it could be "less fun".

From a gameplay stance, I see no glaring issues with stock aerodynamics that just make the game "unfun."

Reentry and aerobraking should be stressfull and sometimes epic (you should watch Gravity :-) ). And currently they are just boring. That is a massive issue.

I have to say I love KSP but I have been disappointed by it due to the aerodynamics model the first hour I played it.

[SAI Peregrinus]

I don't see the point of this discussion. Seriously, let squad make the game how they want it to be. With such a strong modding-community there is no reason to force certain design decisions. If the athmosperic model does not suit your play style replace it with a mod.

This game is in Beta. The point of having open betas is to allow the users to provide feedback, both to find bugs and to fine tune the gameplay. Finding the best-liked default is a good idea, since it will make the final game appeal to more people (and thus sell better). This discussion is about that.

[rynak]

This game is in Beta. The point of having open betas is to allow the users to provide feedback, both to find bugs and to fine tune the gameplay. Finding the best-liked default is a good idea, since it will make the final game appeal to more people (and thus sell better). This discussion is about that.

That was true in 2005. In 2015, "early access" is about making people pay to find bugs... err, i mean it's about funding.

[Voculus]

Squad should leave the current aerodynamics in place. The players that enjoy it, will clearly not be happy with any changes to it. For the rest of us, we're already using FAR. All of the arguing and hostility in this thread is unproductive.

[rynak]

Squad should leave the current aerodynamics in place. The players that enjoy it, will clearly not be happy with any changes to it. For the rest of us, we're already using FAR. All of the arguing and hostility in this thread is unproductive.

So, the only preferences in existance are FAR and stock? Got it. An amazingly simple world.

[Accelerando]

Please do not belittle other peoples comments with terms like "Strawman" if you do not understand them, thank you

The conflict of interest lies in thinking you can add any amount of features/complexity at no cost in term of fun/abstraction.

I don't think anyone is arguing for unendingly increasing complexity. So to be honest, Sal, I would say that Jouni was right, and this is a strawman. I personally don't believe that greater realism has to amount to simulating every fart, and I think other realism enthusiasts have reiterated this point very well. Rules of game design absolutely apply equally to realism as to anything else; but I also think that SQUAD, like Kegereneku, are focusing unnecessarily on realism as the sticking point in this equation, as though all people who want greater realism want the game to require you to micromanage every single little detail of everything.

Edited January 18, 2015 by Accelerando

[Jouni]

My personal experience with FAR and NEAR is that it is too much realism. Some people enjoy that, some do not. From a gameplay stance, I see no glaring issues with stock aerodynamics that just make the game "unfun." Is it realistic? Absolutely not. But it works. It accomplishes what it was designed to do.

From a gameplay perspective, the lack of realism has one significant consequence: it makes balancing the game harder. If you make a game more or less realistic, it's almost automatically more or less balanced, and you just have to fine-tune it. On the other hand, if you deviate too far from realism in one place, you'll have problems with game balance elsewhere.

Stock atmosphere is a force field that makes rockets crawl slowly through the first 10-15 km. In order to make planes fly though it, you'll need engines that generate a lot of thrust, while consuming very little fuel. But if you have highly efficient high-thrust engines for planes, they're going to be a better choice for rockets than actual rocket engines. That doesn't seem right.

If atmospheric reentry is safe and you can easily rotate the craft during reentry, recovering large ships from orbit is relatively easy, and you'll have to design the game economy with this in mind. If you don't give a significant refund for recovering a craft, the players will circumvent this by building reusable craft that can be refueled on ground and launched again. If you do give a refund, there are two basic options. Either you can make rockets so cheap that it doesn't really matter, whether a player uses disposable or recoverable rockets (and then hear the players complaining, when you try to add something else that isn't so cheap to the game). Alternatively, you could make rockets expensive, and force everyone to build recoverable stuff, thus limiting the scope of the game significantly. None of the options is very good.

[GoSlash27]

From a gameplay perspective, the lack of realism has one significant consequence: it makes balancing the game harder. If you make a game more or less realistic, it's almost automatically more or less balanced, and you just have to fine-tune it. On the other hand, if you deviate too far from realism in one place, you'll have problems with game balance elsewhere.

Stock atmosphere is a force field that makes rockets crawl slowly through the first 10-15 km. In order to make planes fly though it, you'll need engines that generate a lot of thrust, while consuming very little fuel. But if you have highly efficient high-thrust engines for planes, they're going to be a better choice for rockets than actual rocket engines. That doesn't seem right.

If atmospheric reentry is safe and you can easily rotate the craft during reentry, recovering large ships from orbit is relatively easy, and you'll have to design the game economy with this in mind. If you don't give a significant refund for recovering a craft, the players will circumvent this by building reusable craft that can be refueled on ground and launched again. If you do give a refund, there are two basic options. Either you can make rockets so cheap that it doesn't really matter, whether a player uses disposable or recoverable rockets (and then hear the players complaining, when you try to add something else that isn't so cheap to the game). Alternatively, you could make rockets expensive, and force everyone to build recoverable stuff, thus limiting the scope of the game significantly. None of the options is very good.

I'll go along with all of this, and misrepresenting this as a call for 100% realism is not only a strawman, but also a false choice fallacy.

"Realism" for it's own sake just plain isn't a priority for me, but it does matter when it affects balance and frustrates newcomers.

We want players to have reasons to employ the entire selection of parts, not just rely on a small handful of parts that work out as optimal in nearly all cases. We want players to seek multiple solutions to engineering problems, not just one.

We *don't* want players getting frustrated because solutions that *should* work don't due to idiosyncrasies in the game engine or model.

This isn't requesting absolute realism at the expense of all else, it's just enough realism to maximize enjoyment. IMO everybody should be on board with that.

Best,

-Slashy

[worir4]

Everybody knows what's fun for them personally, just not what is fun for everyone else as a whole.

That's the problem I'm bringing up with how people are trying to sell this as a 'good for me and by extension must be good for everyone else'. It's a complete lack consideration/empathy for other players or the community that's being constantly overlooked by these people. Highlighting that their idea might be a bit selfish with unconvincing reasoning is not the same as telling them they aren't allowed to have that opinion in the first place.

Explosions....

[OhioBob]

Squad should leave the current aerodynamics in place.

I totally disagree with that. The current model is a bogus placeholder that was put in place in an alpha version of the game. There is no reason why anyone should expect it to remain. And I speak as a person who has only played the stock game. I am not an advocate for FAR, but I do think the game needs to be fixed to some degree. Right now the game is counter-intuitive, such as nose cones increasing drag, and that's just not right. Those things need to be fixed so the game makes sense to future players. Leaving a broken model in place to appease alpha testers who happened to get use to it is, in my opinion, foolish.

[haltux]

Squad should leave the current aerodynamics in place. The players that enjoy it, will clearly not be happy with any changes to it. For the rest of us, we're already using FAR. All of the arguing and hostility in this thread is unproductive.

That would be true if all KSP player were active member of this forum, were installing mods, would know about FAR. I have no figure but I would bet it is very far from being the case, and it will be even further from the truth when the final version will be released and hopefully a new sales pick will occur.

Furthermore, as it has been stated many times, rationnaly Squad should care about future players, not current players that have already paid anyway. Once the game will be officially released, it will get reviewed by many newspapers and blogs, and its sales will highly depend on these reviews. I expect at least some reviewers to be disappointed when they will realize that the performances of a rocket does not depend on its shape, and that nothing wrong can happen at reentry.