Better Than Starting Manned (Flower's WIP KSP mod )

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TheAnarchitect
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Re: Better Than Starting Manned (Flower's WIP KSP mod )

Post by TheAnarchitect »

Well, ok, I think a large part of it is that having features you've been using put behind a tech node paywall or whatever doesn't feel like progress. When people say "I want progression" in a creative game, what they really mean is they want a sense of progress.

To the early release and DLC-addled minds of modern gamers, this means "I want new features periodically." In effect, the release schedule IS the tech-tree for modern gaming.

What I think ACTUALLY would give a sense of progression in a creative game like kerbal space program is having solid reasons to create space infrastructure. This is why, for example, Remotetech is my "won't play without" mod. Because it gives me a reason to put satellites in orbit other than "because the mission told me to," and a better feeling of progress because the thing I built is directly helping me do more things, rather than just giving me points I use to unlock new toys. Tech trees are a good design pattern, but it's getting shoehorned into a sandbox game because it's easily understood by the designers and the audience, not because it's the best fit.

Better than wolves' Midgame is my guiding example of "infrastructural progression." My capabilities in BTW are determined not by accumulation of points towards unlocking nodes or by completing arbitrary missions that grant new capabilities, but organically from what I've created.

I think what would give KSP players a real sense of progression would be a point in the game that shifts from exploration to exploitation.
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FlowerChild
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Re: Better Than Starting Manned (Flower's WIP KSP mod )

Post by FlowerChild »

TheAnarchitect wrote:I think what would give KSP players a real sense of progression would be a point in the game that shifts from exploration to exploitation.
That's all well and good man, but I think you're engaging in pie in the sky idealism with that, while I'm a practical guy.

To me, RemoteTech has one aspect of what could be an overall progression, but it's one aspect that's taken an incredible amount of development time to flesh out, and which does little to bring that progression to other aspects of the game. BTSM also has one aspect that brings such elements to the late game as well with the resource processors and base building aspect that comes along with them, but it's also something I will have to devote a lot more time to in order to make really shine, and one I've put on hold for the time being since Squad has their own resource processing system coming in their next release.

Yes, BTW has a great cause and effect progression where the player's actions are directly linked to the technology they have access to. So does BTSM, but it's locked behind a single layer of abstraction where you earn multi-purpose science that is instead used to purchase a choice of stuff. As Minecraft is a game that revolves around direct manipulation of your environment, whereas KSP is not, with KSP the tech tree approach is well suited, both in terms of the level of abstraction involved in playing an agency instead of an individual, and in terms of the effort required to make it a reality.

Beyond that, I think this is quickly going to spiral into an argument if we continue discussing it as when I read what you're saying my reaction is to scoff at it in terms of it being a practical impossibility. You're of course welcome to try and turn it into a reality if you do think it's reasonable, and I'd certainly enjoy playing it if you did somehow manage to pull it off, but I do not see it being relevant to a conversation about the course I am already on with BTSM.
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TheAnarchitect
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Re: Better Than Starting Manned (Flower's WIP KSP mod )

Post by TheAnarchitect »

Oh, sorry. It is indeed pie in the sky idealism. Mostly I was trying to say that the people who want progression in a creative, sandbox style game have NO IDEA what they actually want, and thus can't be pleased. I personally thing they're asking for the wrong specific thing in response to their general want. It was in no way meant to be a discussion about BTSM in specific. You are clearly working within the framework of the game as it exists.

I wouldn't mind having a pie in the sky discussion about non-tech tree progression sometime. I like shooting the shit with you about game design. Maybe some other time and in a different thread.
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FlowerChild
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Re: Better Than Starting Manned (Flower's WIP KSP mod )

Post by FlowerChild »

TheAnarchitect wrote:Oh, sorry. It is indeed pie in the sky idealism. Mostly I was trying to say that the people who want progression in a creative, sandbox style game have NO IDEA what they actually want, and thus can't be pleased. I personally thing they're asking for the wrong specific thing in response to their general want. It was in no way meant to be a discussion about BTSM in specific. You are clearly working within the framework of the game as it exists.

I wouldn't mind having a pie in the sky discussion about non-tech tree progression sometime. I like shooting the shit with you about game design. Maybe some other time and in a different thread.
Yup, I enjoy it too and you've helped me solidify some of my own design principles through these discussions in the past.

Sorry if I took that comment more personally than I should of. I deal with a lot of pie in the sky stuff when it comes to BTSM, particularly right now given the increased exposure the mod is receiving (I generally equate more exposure to more stress, with me having to put up my shields so that the insults roll off), so I have a bit of a short fuse when it comes to that, particularly in my "safe zone" on these forums :)

Because if I step back and not view it as a discussion directly about the current state of BTSM, at its core, I do agree with you that it's an ideal that should be aspired towards where reasonable, and indeed I am doing so (or attempting to) myself with the resource processing bit I mentioned in the late game of BTSM.

So really, the whole transition between exploration into establishing infrastructure is where I am aiming for as well, I just know it's going to be a very long road to get there, particularly because KSP is frankly a real bitch to mod (beyond the most basic level of part editing in the .cfg files) with it often times taking a disproportionately long time to get something done because of the technical hoops that have to be jumped through. Code access is extremely limited, so it often times becomes more of a matter of figuring out how to hack something vaguely akin to what you'd actually like into the game rather than just straight out coding it as intended.
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TheAnarchitect
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Re: Better Than Starting Manned (Flower's WIP KSP mod )

Post by TheAnarchitect »

I totally get the "Under pressure" thing. There's a reason I chose to talk about this here instead of, say, in the KSP forums. There's no way I would start a theory discussion somewhere outside the "safe zone." And I'm totally not commenting on BTSM, but on KSP in general. Given that it's a stressful time thanks to the Scott Manley Video, I'll come back to chat another time.

Parting thought; I think KSP is at it's strongest, thematically, when it transitions from "I'm recreating historic space missions" to "I'm doing things we''ve never done before with the same basic technology." That's the point at which it begins to inspire.
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Re: Better Than Starting Manned (Flower's WIP KSP mod )

Post by Wibbles »

New beginner with KSP here. Honestly, I haven't got a clue what stock KSP is like so can't really compare. It was the Scott Manley vid that pushed me into buying it, and even before I loaded it up I'd modded it with BTSM.

I can't remember having this much fun for a long long time. So far I'm up to manned missions to the mün and the game feels really well balanced. Thanks FC!
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Re: Better Than Starting Manned (Flower's WIP KSP mod )

Post by FlowerChild »

I'm always a bit at a loss as to what to say when someone hasn't played a game without one of my mods, as I can't really tell if the parts they are enjoying are my doing or just the brilliance of the underlying game, but regardless, I'm glad you're enjoying it man :)
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Re: Better Than Starting Manned (Flower's WIP KSP mod )

Post by DaveYanakov »

I honestly tried to play stock KSP but I lost interest three hours in. Don't know if that gives you an idea which parts I enjoy but I don;t think I could make myself drive around the science center to get the research from the various 'biomes' there ever again
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Re: Better Than Starting Manned (Flower's WIP KSP mod )

Post by FlowerChild »

DaveYanakov wrote:I honestly tried to play stock KSP but I lost interest three hours in. Don't know if that gives you an idea which parts I enjoy but I don;t think I could make myself drive around the science center to get the research from the various 'biomes' there ever again
Lol! Stock is actually a lot better if you force yourself *not* to do that. In all fairness to Squad I had a good stock career run that lasted more than a half hour for the first time in many releases with 0.9/0.26/0ooooooohTeaseMeLikeAWombat, but I definitely self-imposed a "no ground science" rule to give it an even somewhat decent chance of it being entertaining.

The addition of the upgradeable facilities added some much needed progression (awkward mind you) to the game, to the point where I actually made it through a few tech levels before feeling the overwhelming need to update BTSM because I couldn't take it anymore :)

I was rather bummed when it turned out the facilities are distinctly non-moddable. There's just nothing I can really do with them right now, even making use of a tire iron.
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Re: Better Than Starting Manned (Flower's WIP KSP mod )

Post by Gilberreke »

FlowerChild wrote:I was rather bummed when it turned out the facilities are distinctly non-moddable. There's just nothing I can really do with them right now, even making use of a tire iron.
Eventually you will be able to I guess. Do you feel like that's something that will allow you to express yourself even more with BTSM or not?
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Taleric
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Re: Better Than Starting Manned (Flower's WIP KSP mod )

Post by Taleric »

The retooling of BTSM following 1.0 is starting to look like a mountain! I can't bare to look at any more progress, too exciting.

The only thing feature on my KSP bucket list not mentioned are communications restrictions.

With a feature stable KSP build BTSM will be all the more fun on the otherside. I am glad you enjoy KSP enough to bring us all the additional content FC :)
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Re: Better Than Starting Manned (Flower's WIP KSP mod )

Post by FlowerChild »

I'm thinking a lot of it is going to be rather lackluster though. I'm really not down with them cutting the beta period short like this and rushing to go release with the next version. I suspect the new stuff is going to suffer worst for them rushing like that. As an example, they're now saying that they're including reentry effects but they're not sure if they're going to have independent heatshield parts (as in: huh?).

Anyways, I've gone on enough about that topic over on the KSP forums that I really don't want to rehash it here ;)
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Re: Better Than Starting Manned (Flower's WIP KSP mod )

Post by Wibbles »

Wife took the kids on a short vacation to Denmark this weekend, and I thought of no better way to spend my brief freedom than to... fly to the mun (and plant a flag, and get back in one piece)!

Due to the 500T weight limit I'd decided to build two separate rockets; one to take the unmanned 2M2C lander and the other to take the command pod itself. After several failures, luck, and faffing around, I succeeded in getting them docked in mun orbit. This is considering I didn't have any control over the lander at all as battery power had run out. Protip: if you expect to dock your vessel, make sure the RCS thrusters are balanced around CoM. I had some real /ragequit moments because my pod kept rotating when I was trying to do translation maneuvres. Sheesh. I succeeded when I rammed the lander in frustration; to my amazement the docking ports found each other after some crazy spinning and did a weird pendulum dance for a minute before connecting. So *thats* how you dock!

The landing itself went great. I took a soil sample, got a surface EVA report. Science! I faffed around getting back into orbit as close to the command pod as possible, faffed around even more docking again (at least I could control both vessels this time so the docking ports lined up), and set a course for Kerbin.

And then I find the pod's rocket doesn't have enough fuel to break out of mun orbit. I sat there, pretty glum for a while, thinking the mission was a complete failure. Until inspiration struck: I might have just enough fuel left in the lander to boost the command pod part of the way! Hurra!

At this point I discover a problem. I didn't have enough life support to make it back to Kerbin, even when I'd transferred what was left from the can.

I did, however, have just enough for two of the kerbals. I had no choice. I decided for one of them this was going to be a one-way mission.

Which led me to my next dilemma; if given no other choice, who would you sacrifice? the pilot, the engineer or the scientist?
Spoiler
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Jeb was the least useless member of the crew, so it was between Bill or Bob. Bill picked the short straw. He subsequently took his last spacewalk whilst the pod burned away without him. Poor Bill. But don't shed a tear; he was sacrificed in the name of science. I'm sure he didn't mind too much.
The -50000 kerbools and -25 rep stung a bit, but I found it within myself to carry on, knowing I'd be recompensed greatly for the successful mun mission. So with ~1000 life support left, the remaining two lucky crew members still alive, no rapid unplanned disassembly from atmospheric rentry, I landed the pod almost directly on the kerbin space center! Utter elation! YEEEEEEHAW!

Wow! Talk about cutting it close. I'd thought the mission doomed twice because of lack of fuel and life support. Time to click that big green button and recover the pod.

At this point I make another hilarious discovery...
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Bill had forgotten to plant the flag on the fucking mun.
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