Squadcast Summary (2015-02-07) - The 'Not Very Interesting' Edition

[rkman]

Time spent in the VAB represents 'design office' time so would not in itself affect normal game (as in mission) time because as IRL it happens whilst missions etc are in progress, so time 'freezing' whilst in VAB does make sense. Actual build time, if implemented, should delay the availability of the designed vessel

I think the problem is that both designing+testing and building are done in the VAB, so the game can't distinguish between those except if the player would have a way to indicate what he is doing (isn't that what KCT does?).

On the other hand, how bad would it be if designing+testing to would take time?

For complex missions, there may be 10-20 "launches" before the first real launch. If I need to wait for the launch longer than it takes to load the scene, the only possible explanation is that the developers are sadists.

I think that would be solved simply by having any time spend in the VAB cause some amount of game time to pass, as opposed to having no time pass at all. There would be no need to delay availaibility of the vessel and no need to timewarp.

We'd probably still be cheating on time by using "revert" after test flight.

Edited February 7, 2015 by rkman

[basic.syntax]

It's not about realism, it's about immersion. [...] Build times and science taking time promote, but don't require, multitasking multiple missions and contracts at once. Running multiple missions helps make it feel like a real space program.

While waiting for most of my crew (at the 12-member limit upgrade level) to return from a Duna mission, I decided to skill up some of my other guys by sending them to Minimus, and at the same time a satellite contract popped up, so I also took a detachable probe for that. While heading out there, the arrival at Minimus just happened to coincide with the arrival of the other group back at Kerbin. I had the Minimus satellite + crew lander separately capturing into Minimus orbit, and Kerbin aerobrake all happen in the same hour. I was immersed And thank goodness not distracted by life support running out somewhere else, at the same time

The Skyrim RPG was released with 100's of hours of gameplay, but they too have a vibrant mod community that continually adds items, quests and stuff to do for folks who have exhausted the base game, or are just looking for something new. KSP is going to be no different, in that regard.

I think you're right though about adding a resource system. For the longest time they were against the idea, now they have rethought it. No clue if it will have time-based mechanics.

The main developer has written on the topic of resources, and the feeling of reaching the end of what you can do in games generally, in this 2013 post.

[tater]

Time passing in the VAB would have to be accelerated or it would be useless. Many weeks need to pass, not minutes.

[razark]

Yeah the trouble is if this experiment is repeatable. If it is you can just warp-repeat grind through your entire tech tree.

You are completely correct. If the experiment were repeatable, or if it was continuous (giving a few science points per day, or something), I could warp through the time, unlock the entire science tree, and then I have all the parts to play with, with no effort on my part.

So, you're arguing against having sandbox mode?

If a player wants to have the tech tree filled out without doing anything, the player can simply play sandbox mode and skip the part where they have to put something in orbit first. Any player that is willing to do that is not one that would be playing career in the first place.

Edited February 7, 2015 by razark

[yardpup01]

While waiting for most of my crew (at the 12-member limit upgrade level) to return from a Duna mission, I decided to skill up some of my other guys by sending them to Minimus, and at the same time a satellite contract popped up, so I also took a detachable probe for that. While heading out there, the arrival at Minimus just happened to coincide with the arrival of the other group back at Kerbin. I had the Minimus satellite + crew lander separately capturing into Minimus orbit, and Kerbin aerobrake all happen in the same hour. I was immersed And thank goodness not distracted by life support running out somewhere else, at the same time

I agree that there's currently existing reasons to run multiple missions and achieve immersion (and I acknowledge there are other factors to immersion). I was merely making the argument that construction time and other time-based mechanics can aid in this effort. I realize it's not everyone's playstyle to juggle multiple items. There are many who do one mission at a time start to finish, and that's perfectly valid. I'm arguing for additions to the game which would not impact their playstyle (you can timewarp all waiting away, or disable it in the settings) but would greatly add to mine and players similar to me.

[metl]

Everyone interested in the topic of time in rocket building, whether pro or con, should really just go give KCT a try. Every single difficulty in this thread has been addressed by that mod with a more elegant solution than most of those I've seen proposed here.

I'm not saying KCT should be stock, or that you should like it. I'm just saying that everyone who has a stake in whether or not construction time is part of KSP should get some experience of what a well-designed system with that in mind looks like.

I did actually try it briefly shortly before .90 released. It was well built (within the limitations of what can be done as a mod) but I suddenly felt like I was playing a completely different game and doing nothing but hitting the "warp to completion" button. If I had played it long enough where I had multiple missions all over the place going at once, I might have a different outlook, but as it was it didn't add any immersion. It just became a tedious time-sink where I sat and stared at the screen waiting for the time to tick away. Good mod, just not for everyone.

[SorryDave]

LS could finally give players a reason to unlock the tech tree besides giving higher paying part testing contracts.

Later technology could allow unlocking better and less heavy life support systems. Depending on how LS is implemented, giant solar panels and big batteries could also be useful outside of rovers and ion drives.

Of course if not done well, it could make manned outposts not just a waste of resources better used for achieving contracts, but also a bit of a grind.

I have faith that the development team will be focused on a fun implementation.

[Robotengineer]

Some mods will be adopted into the core game over time, but others will not, for many reasons, and despite their popularity. HarvesteR has replied to this type of question, in this post.

I guess I missed that post when it first came out, but it does kind of make sense that they create it themselves to be able to know how it works. If they are not going to integrate some mods that are pretty much essential, they need to make the mods more accessible to new players. The mods and add-ons button at the main menu needs to link to the forum, not Curse. Since nearly all mods have a page on the forum, but not a Curse page.

[Pthigrivi]

You are completely correct. If the experiment were repeatable, or if it was continuous (giving a few science points per day, or something), I could warp through the time, unlock the entire science tree, and then I have all the parts to play with, with no effort on my part.

I mean or you could just make those experiments non-repeatable in some way. They could be like the goo canister or materials bay in that they pay out over time and then stop, but can't be cleaned. This would be a lot like when they send samples up to the ISS, in that the experiment completes and the sample is spent. I still like the idea that the materials bay could be loaded with samples, which then pay out depending on what was loaded and what the biome is. Samples could include contract samples offered at KSC or surface samples collected by the player. Once exposed those samples would be spent, but the bay could be reloaded with new samples at the science lab. All of these could take time, so long as the number of samples was limited to what the player had available to load.

So yeah I guess I'm not fundamentally against long duration elements in the game so long as they add some new layer to the gameplay and not just a tedious extra warp step.

Edited February 7, 2015 by Pthigrivi

[sjohnson0684]

And once again I find myself having to try to talk sense and reason into someone that is only concerned with their own narrow view of how the game should be played. So anyone not comfortable with build times should just learn to multitask several ships at once? Yeah, okay...

The multitasking comment was not directed at people that are not comfortable with build times but at people that find time warping inconvenient (if people do not like time warping, then what else are they suppose to do in between?). The entire game is basically do something, time warp, do something time warp, etc.; adding one more thing to time warp to does not make much of a difference. And as for a narrow view of how the game should be played, all I am doing is suggesting that mechanics that are more realistic that would help to increase the challenge of the game be rolled into the harder difficulties. If someone does not want deadly reentry, life support, build times, etc., then they should play on easy or have the option to disable these individually in the custom difficulties. And I'm not suggesting that every difficulty mod out there should be rolled into stock for the higher difficulties, but some basic ones should; I won't be disappointed if KSP does not have stock KCT, as long as they find other methods to make the game more enjoyable and challenging in the long run at higher difficulties. It's just really irritating when Squad immediately shoots down a good idea because it would be too challenging or not fun for new players, without considering adding it in as a difficulty option for veteran players.

I also find your statement about in-game tutorials to be contradictory to your previous statement. If these new players that do not take the time to read forum posts or watch videos on how to play, and do not have proper tutorials built into the game, how are they supposed to learn? Just getting into orbit without added difficulty options is difficult on its own for new players that may think that they can just go straight up to get into orbit. I'm not saying that these tutorials have to be long and teach them every aspect of the game. There should be several tutorials available for specific tasks that show the player exactly what to do: how to build a rocket and launch it, how to get into orbit, how to rendezvous and dock, how to go to the Mun, how to go to Duna, etc. The new player picks which tutorial that they want and when they want it.

My ultimate point is that the game needs to be able to stand on its own without reliance on mods. The masses that are going to be introduced to this game on release, for the most part, are not going to be interested in installing a ton of mods like many of us do after they get past that initial fun factor that you point out. I have spent probably 1000+ hours playing the game, but maybe only 5 of which pure stock, which I think is quite sad that I have had to rely on mods so much to continue enjoying the game. That's why the game needs these challenges for higher difficulties, to keep people playing and having fun.

Edited February 7, 2015 by sjohnson0684

[Melfice]

I wonder if Regex can taste anything besides the taste if feet by now.

"Oh no! Aerodynamics are going to suck! It's not going to be modable! Squad is the worst!"

"Oh... well... aerodynamics with actual mach effects? FAR is still going to be an option? Hmm, well... I guess it's foot in my mouth AGAIN today."

[Vanamonde]

Okay folks, do not make the discussion personal, please.

[regex]

I wonder if Regex can taste anything besides the taste if feet by now.

My tastebuds are quite free of foot, thank you very much.

"Oh no! Aerodynamics are going to suck! It's not going to be modable! Squad is the worst!"

"Oh... well... aerodynamics with actual mach effects? FAR is still going to be an option? Hmm, well... I guess it's foot in my mouth AGAIN today."

Up until now all I had to go off was Squad's past performance and literal non-commitment to anything resembling realism. Furthermore, I have never said that Squad's aerodynamic implementation is going to "suck", merely that it wouldn't be FAR and thus there would be no reason for me to use it. Squad still has to prove to us that this new aero system will, in fact, be moddable (ferram4 will be the real judge of that, and all Maxmaps is saying is that it should be moddable) but, given how the code looked last time I checked they could just as easily screw something up and make it incredibly hard to get anything done (asteroids, tech tree, etc...). For instance, they could hard-code something (like the weight limits on the pad, who the hell thought that was a good idea...) or introduce something into the system whereby circumvention introduced a ton of lag because two systems were running at once.

[Joonatan1998]

I think time based game mechanics would make the game more fun, but right implementation is very important.

At the moment there are very few time based things:

-Contract time limits

-transfer windows

-time it takes to get anywhere.

Time based things that could be added:

-constant costs (or maybe income based on reputation?)

-construction times

-life support

-maybe some random events (rockomax parts are now 4% cheaper!!!)

-contract generation (at the moment they generate almost instantly, so you can just pick the easy exploitable ones.

While adding only 1 of those would lead to "just time warp over it" I think adding several would really improve the game.

Low difficulty setting should have some of the features disabled.

Construction time:

When you press launch button, it would give you a choise between "timewarp to launch" and "tell me when it is ready"

If you choose to timewarp, but some of your ships would run out of life support, it could give you a warning

"Jool Ship 5 would run out of life support if during the warp, are you sure you want to warp?"

Life support:

I think it really should only be a problem on interplanetary missions, pods should have enough of it for mun/mimus flights. (the first landings seem to be one of the learning walls for new players.)

Very heavy recyclers (>15t) for space stations at the end of the tech tree would probably be good too.

I think 1 life support resource would be enough.

Contract generation:

At the moment you can just refuse contracts untill you get the one you want, thins make several of them very abusable. (Transmit data...)

Having time delay with the offers would help with this.

Constant costs:

Maybe salary for kerbals in space? Upkeep for KSC? These would have to be small to not make jool missions impractical, but they would really add an reason to use faster transfer routes than the most fuel efficient one.

I'm not sure if this would work.

Edited February 7, 2015 by Joonatan1998

[BudgetHedgehog]

For instance, they could hard-code something ... or introduce something into the system whereby circumvention introduced a ton of lag because two systems were running at once.

[regex]

I took that to mean that atmosphere can be disabled (similar to hack gravity now), which would give FAR more room to work. Rather than cancelling out stock aero and adding its own, it can just add its own. We'll see what this really means though, I can understand what you're saying.

That's great news. tbh I can't actually see why they wouldn't do something like that given the popularity of FAR and the literal uprising locking it out would cause, but this is "hard-code the pad limits" Squad after all. vOv

[m4v]

tbh I can't actually see why they wouldn't do something like that given the popularity of FAR and the literal uprising locking it out would cause

Man, if you knew that when why did you make a big deal out of it?

but this is "hard-code the pad limits" Squad after all.

A logical fallacy, just because Squad hard-coded something doesn't mean they will hard-code everything.

[regex]

A logical fallacy, just because Squad hard-coded something doesn't mean they will hard-code everything.

There is no fallacy involved because I am not making, nor have I ever made, the case that Squad will hard-code "everything". It was an indicator of how they had been "unfriendly" to modders in past versions (and the fact that you took it so out of context is indicative of your desire to attack my criticism no matter how truthful it may be). The same can be said for their treatment of the tech tree and the implementation of asteroids. It is good to see Squad taking this one seriously, at least.

[m4v]

There is no fallacy involved because I am not making, nor have I ever made, the case that Squad will hard-code "everything". It was an indicator of how they had been "unfriendly" to modders in past versions. The same can be said for their treatment of the tech tree and the implementation of asteroids. It is good to see Squad taking this one seriously, at least.

You're just picking bits of the game that corroborates your assertion while ignoring everything else, I can just make a counterpoint by pointing everything that is moddable in the game, showing how friendly Squad is to modders.

[basic.syntax]

And this...

[mattinoz]

Construction time:

When you press launch button, it would give you a choise between "timewarp to launch" and "tell me when it is ready"

If you choose to timewarp, but some of your ships would run out of life support, it could give you a warning

"Jool Ship 5 would run out of life support if during the warp, are you sure you want to warp?"

I think there could be an alternative to construction time to make time spent on the base matter.

Facility Warp Level.

Basically as each time a builder levels up then time runs one warp setting faster while in the facility.

The base warp level would be the average of the building tiers.

So it the VAB as you get larger heavier parts then we can still put them together lego style and tweak them up but the time that passes still reflects the complexity, so a complex craft in a high tier of the VAB might take 1/2hr play time but a day or two in game time. It also adds value to keeping subassemblies and your own pre-made craft around and organised. Also encourages getting the most out each tier of the building.

To me that would be much better than a roadblock. It adds both value and pressure to the time spent building craft.

[BudgetHedgehog]

And this...

[regex]

You're just picking bits of the game that corroborates your assertion while ignoring everything else, I can just make a counterpoint by pointing everything that is moddable in the game, showing how friendly Squad is to modders.

But that is simply not true since we cannot change the pad allowance, as it is hard-coded. Sorry the argument doesn't work for you. vOv

And this...

[Liowen]

So wait if construction time is put in will I have to wait X amount of time from designing my rocket/plane/pile-o-parts to launch it, or something else? If it is the first one that, to me, is silly considering I might do multiple tests of something to see what is or is not working. If it is something else I guess I am missing something then. Personally I hate artificial time sinks in games, it is as bad as grinding away for xp in some games because you are too low to move on to the next area. If implemented I hope there is an option to turn it off, or even better still make it off by default but easy enough to find for those that want it on. As for life support I feel something more a long the lines of Snacks would be fitting KSP, it kills of you rep if you leave a Kerbal in space without snack (at least last I looked into the mod that is), this could effect contracts you get, how much pay out of those contracts, and random Kerbals leaving your space program because they are unhappy with you, the last one would suck if you had no one to turn on SAS on you big crafts.

[KerBlam]

Still talking about build time... The more I think about it, the more I think it would be a pain in the backside. I'd say leave that one to the modders.

and the same with Life support. It's a feature that some people want, and can be added with a mod. Why not leave it that way? There's no reason to choke the game up with things that only some people want, and that can be easily added if you can't live without it.

KSP is a great platform for customisation via mods, and the more stuff that gets hardwired into stock, the less potential for customisation.