Thinking About Career Progression and Science

[ChrisKal]

Let me preface this whole thing by saying that I realize how unlikely this is to ever be implemented. It's essentially asking for a complete revamp of career mode, which is probably too much to ask. Still, I think I have a good enough case to make that I'd like to attempt to do so. I don't think many of these ideas would be difficult to implement.

Put simply, I don't much like the current implementation of career mode. I like a lot of the ideas in place, but I feel the contracts system does not play to the game's strengths while the way science is earned is currently too inflexible. On a high level, KSP is a game all about mastering the mechanics of space travel. Since the goal of career mode is ultimately to teach new players how to do this bit by bit, it only makes sense to structure the mode around building towards that mastery bit by bit. Currently there are a lot of rather uninteresting goals to reach (the "Test X part under Y conditions" contracts are perfect examples of this) and some fairly difficult ones to achieve for a new player ( like "rescue a kerbal from orbit" or "explore the moon". Even for an experienced player acquiring the funds and science to do anything interesting in career mode requires a fair bit of grind through comparatively dull contracts. My proposition to fix this is fairly simple: make most goals focused around launching things for scientific research.

Well, that's the mile-high version anyway. Let me break this down a bit:

Part I : Make Every Mission Feel Like It's Accomplishing Something

This one is pretty simple, but I feel like there should be way less focus on testing parts (those missions should be optional at best) and far more on actually launching things both be it into orbit or just suborbital early on. Probes would need to be accessible early and their utility would need to be expanded greatly. I'd like to see more instruments for gathering science and contracts asking for a probe with a specific set of sensors to be launched, with the specific requirements for altitude/orbit only tightening up after more general requirements ( low orbit, upper atmosphere, polar orbit, etc ) had been filled in another contract at least once. It should be a gradual progression to more difficult launches, and every one should be doing something new, perhaps even using special one-time parts that are specifically issued by the company offering the contract. This would allow players a chance to get science and funds while enjoying a fairer difficulty curve and learning how to do new things continually on a drip feed.

Part II : Long-Term Science and Multiple Uses for Probes

I believe that certain types of probes should be able to continuously generate science, or generate science at fixed intervals. There are all kinds of probes in real life that exist to scan areas over and over to monitor and map changes in an environment or just to gather detailed information over time. Something like this would allow for probes launched at all phases of the game to have continued utility, and prevent a situation where a player is frustrated not knowing where to get science from. This could also allow some information to be gathered about different biomes (and perhaps even make a map of them ) so that information doesn't all get missed. I don't see this replacing physically visiting these places, but it's much faster and more practical in the short term to make this sort of option available.

Space Stations could also factor into this, possibly earning science over time by launching new experiments and supplies, exchanging crew, etc.

The other mechanic I'd love to see added is allowing a single probe to receive multiple contracts over its lifetime. For example, having it take readings over a specific area, making adjustments to its orbit or even de-orbiting it entirely. I really think anything that allows getting more utility out of individual launches would go a long way to improving the career.

Part III : Secondary Conditions

The last thing I'd like to see here is secondary conditions added to contracts. This would allow the more difficult conditions that require more careful play and planning to be made optional while encouraging players to be as efficient and careful as possible with the promise of extra rewards. These could range from recovering stages to meeting stricter mission parameters and could really do a lot to both lower the skill floor and raise the skill ceiling in career mode.

So, that's it. I'm sure that there's some overlap between my ideas and things that have already been suggested, but I haven't seen anything quite like this in my cursory look through this forum.

Anyway, let me know if you agree or disagree and if you don't agree I'd love to hear suggestions to improve my own suggestion.

Edit: A few more ideas

-Require space telescopes and probes to gather information about the solar system before it can be seen from the tracking station

-Implement some kind of system for a continuous, but small-ish source of money not tied to contracts. Could perhaps be awarded once per day, but only if a launch is performed or existing missions gather new science. The intent here is to give a little extra incentive to launch missions focused on gathering all available science ( though I suppose this also could be done through contracts [ "return a surface sample from X area", etc ] and to make it a little harder to fall into a rut, but not impossible for a careless player to bankrupt themselves.

Edited February 6, 2015 by ChrisKal