Auto pilot

[CHRIS P BACON]

Hi all,
Is anyway the KSP2 have his own autopilot, so people want to have a bit the fun can have the autopilot on and go land in any planet without to go trough all the changes need to be done when you flying it and also a Disable autopilot so people what more challenger can fly like KSP1 whith all the challenger.
Thank you.

[Chilkoot]

A major design flaw with KSP 1 is that most players never made it to Duna or beyond. Hell, I'd be surprised if half the people who bought the game successfully landed on Mun without cheats - in fact I believe Nate S. said it was far less then that back in the Star Theory days.

KSP was a great sandbox, but a terrible game. Intercept knows this and have referenced it repeatedly as a focus for improvement in KSP 2.

Don't be surprised if things are optionally more forgiving or if there are more automated or "hand-holdy" modes for beginners. As a developer, you don't want to pouring huge amounts of effort into content that 5% of players will experience. Private Division would never fund such a flawed design mindset, and you can bet they'll be enforcing a more accessible game universe for that $70 sticker price.

So let's not be elitist ♥♥♥♥♥ and tell people how they should play. If there are optional easy modes to let people explore, all the better if it gets them interested and maybe trying some harder stuff once they learn the ropes. Also, if new players can't jump into multiplayer and join their long-playing friends in some meaningful capacity, the game will suck for everyone, and no publisher worth their salt would let that happen.

[Mickk]

Nicely said Chilkoot,

I just wanted to mention my experience because you mentioned getting to Duna.

I do think most peoples first stop upon leaving Kerbin was to reach the Mun then make a landing there. Fair enough getting safely down on the Mun has it's difficulties and once you can get your head around the lack of atmosphere and gravity on the Mun it does give a feeling of accomplishment upon landing.

I found Minmus a little easier than the Mun to land on and my next stop was Duna because of it's atmosphere. The ability to load some chutes for the landing I found made it one of the easier planets to get to.
One of the difficulties in getting to the other planets is working out the launch window, miss that and you end up spending much more Dv then you should have to.

Anyway KSP1 was/is a great game and I am excited to see what KSP2 looks like, autopilot and all.

[CHRIS P BACON]

Hi Mastah,
Sometimes people have a holiday for time to time, is not i don't read the post I just like to have a holiday away from all computer crap.
Thank you all for the nice and bad post.

[Mastah]

Messaggio originale di Mercenary:

Hi Mastah,
Sometimes people have a holiday for time to time, is not i don't read the post I just like to have a holiday away from all computer crap.
Thank you all for the nice and bad post.

If you can't find time to read replies just avoid replying instead of making up other people points. Nobody brought up realism as a point.

Messaggio originale di Chilkoot:

KSP was a great sandbox, but a terrible game. Intercept knows this and have referenced it repeatedly as a focus for improvement in KSP 2.

Half of KSP is being a space flight sim, it's not only that but that's a big portion of what KSP is. The core of the game is "Build and fly cool rockets" learning how to fly them is an integral part of the game as much as building and staging. You can phrase it how you want but at the end of the day what is being proposed here is to cut the game in half and throw away the half you don't like.
It's something as absurd as proposing to make guns and violence optional in the next Doom sequel.

Messaggio originale di Mickk:

Nicely said Chilkoot,

I just wanted to mention my experience because you mentioned getting to Duna.

I do think most peoples first stop upon leaving Kerbin was to reach the Mun then make a landing there. Fair enough getting safely down on the Mun has it's difficulties and once you can get your head around the lack of atmosphere and gravity on the Mun it does give a feeling of accomplishment upon landing.

I found Minmus a little easier than the Mun to land on and my next stop was Duna because of it's atmosphere. The ability to load some chutes for the landing I found made it one of the easier planets to get to.
One of the difficulties in getting to the other planets is working out the launch window, miss that and you end up spending much more Dv then you should have to.

Anyway KSP1 was/is a great game and I am excited to see what KSP2 looks like, autopilot and all.

There's a huge difference between giving the player tools to help with interplanetary navigation and transfers and giving them a point-and-land autopilot.
The only way to learn how to make interplanetary transfers without inefficiently eyeballing it wasting 10 times the Delta V really required is to learn orbital mechanics and the math behind it to an extend that goes way well beyond what should be required for a game, that goes beyond "playing" and into actual studying.

That's why transfer window planners, Delta V reading and maps and any other help in planning transfers should totally be stock. That's not the kind of "autopilot" I'm arguing against, I don't even call that an autopilot, it's just mere navigation tools.

The kind of autopilot I'm talking about it's the one that allows you to perform a rendez-vous with a space station without learning how it works or being able to do it manually if required, the type of autopilot that makes your booster, capsule or spaceplane land back at the KSC without any input from the player, or the kind of autopilot that makes learning how to pull a good gravity turn and how to build a rocket that you can control in doing so an obsolete and useless skill instead of being the main focus of the game.

And I'm not even talking against automation, I'm totally fine with the already confirmed supply routes system (in which you do a flight once manually and then you can repeat it automatically in background).

I'm not judging the way anyone plays, if you want to install MJ and watch your rocket orbit itself, rendezvous itself with a space station, dock automatically and then perfectly deorbit to land on the VAB's roof without any input from you I'm totally fine with that, you be you, but that is objectively the same thing as playing Doom with an aimbot installed, you're free to mod the game to your liking but please don't ask to make that the default experience, somebody is going to mod it in anyway.
Half of the KSP experience is flying your own craft, I don't want that half of the gameplay being relegated to an option hidden somewhere in the "advanced difficulty setting" menu.

There are underlying gameplay design changes if you want to make the game not about flying but just about managing colonies, design changes that would bring the game away from "build, fly, dream" and more towards press the "go to the Mun" button and play a discount version of Factorio or Oxygen not Included there. That's what KSP2 should avoid, we have dozens of city builders, colony sims and factory management games but only 2 indie space flight sims with proper orbital mechanics.

[Chilkoot]

Messaggio originale di Chilkoot:

KSP was a great sandbox, but a terrible game. Intercept knows this and have referenced it repeatedly as a focus for improvement in KSP 2.

Half of KSP is being a space flight sim, it's not only that but that's a big portion of what KSP is. The core of the game is "Build and fly cool rockets" learning how to fly them is an integral part of the game as much as building and staging. You can phrase it how you want but at the end of the day what is being proposed here is to cut the game in half and throw away the half you don't like.
It's something as absurd as proposing to make guns and violence optional in the next Doom sequel.

You're putting words in my mouth, but that's my fault, not yours. I'm not proposing removing core features of the game, rather the opposite.

KSP's game-type modes (science and later career) were poorly designed and implemented - tacked on, really. Neither is tuned to give the player an edifying feeling of progression, meaningful reasons to explore, or difficult choices other than perhaps the tech tree. "Picking up science" started down the right path, but fell flat quickly in its implementation.

Many non-sandbox players turned to mods to try and remedy this. Look at the most popular mechanics implemented by mods, and compare that with what Intercept is adding to address the shortfalls:

• Unlocking future techs for propulsion, power generation, habitation, etc., and not just "bigger fuel tanks"
  
• Meaningful ISRU for rare and unique resources - compelling reasons to establish presence on particular bodies (GPP and JNSQ did this very well)
  
• Functional bases that act as a permanent presence and springboard to further exploration
  
• Progression based on real exploration and exploitation achievements, not simply biome hopping or dropping an armada of science factories in orbit.
  
• Deep space exploration, new horizons, interstellar travel. A real "let's see what's out there" exploration experience.
  
• Collaborative and competitive play with friends

Remember: players can quickly unlock everything in the game without setting foot on Mun, which should tell you immediately something is very, very wrong with the design.

Intercept knows KSP - from a game design perspective - is very weak, and they are using established, effective design techniques to make KSP's non-sandbox mode a compelling and rewarding experience.

Returning to your own topic, if there is an *optional* "semi-auto-pilot" or guided mode for new players to help them ease in, I'm all for it. How does this affect you? Don't use it. No one here is arguing that one of the core mechanics (flying rockets) be removed or made unavailable.

EDIT: I'm all in favour of a built-in system that permits scripting if players choose to do so, similar to kOS. This seems like a core part of rocket design missing from the game. From what we heard a couple of years back during interviews, this will be included, but it was not clearly confirmed by Star Theory at the time, nor by Intercept since the hand-over.

[Mastah]

Messaggio originale di Chilkoot:

KSP's game-type modes (science and later career) were poorly designed and implemented - tacked on, really. Neither is tuned to give the player an edifying feeling of progression, meaningful reasons to explore, or difficult choices other than perhaps the tech tree. "Picking up science" started down the right path, but fell flat quickly in its implementation.

Many non-sandbox players turned to mods to try and remedy this. Look at the most popular mechanics implemented by mods, and compare that with what Intercept is adding to address the shortfalls:

• Unlocking future techs for propulsion, power generation, habitation, etc., and not just "bigger fuel tanks"
  
• Meaningful ISRU for rare and unique resources - compelling reasons to establish presence on particular bodies (GPP and JNSQ did this very well)
  
• Functional bases that act as a permanent presence and springboard to further exploration
  
• Progression based on real exploration and exploitation achievements, not simply biome hopping or dropping an armada of science factories in orbit.
  
• Deep space exploration, new horizons, interstellar travel. A real "let's see what's out there" exploration experience.
  
• Collaborative and competitive play with friends

Remember: players can quickly unlock everything in the game without setting foot on Mun, which should tell you immediately something is very, very wrong with the design.

Intercept knows KSP - from a game design perspective - is very weak, and they are using established, effective design techniques to make KSP's non-sandbox mode a compelling and rewarding experience.

Up until here I'm 100% with you, and jumping ahead a moment to this:

Messaggio originale di Chilkoot:

EDIT: I'm all in favour of a built-in system that permits scripting if players choose to do so, similar to kOS. This seems like a core part of rocket design missing from the game. From what we heard a couple of years back during interviews, this will be included, but it was not clearly confirmed by Star Theory at the time, nor by Intercept since the hand-over.

I said on the real forum a bunch of times that they should totally replace the action group system and the KAL editor with some easy to use VPL with maybe a full programming system with an easy to use real world language like LUA or Python.

Now back to the topic at hand:

Messaggio originale di Chilkoot:

Returning to your own topic, if there is an *optional* "semi-auto-pilot" or guided mode for new players to help them ease in, I'm all for it. How does this affect you? Don't use it. No one here is arguing that one of the core mechanics (flying rockets) be removed or made unavailable.

Lets me use a single maneuver as an example, something that's going to be relevant for colonies: pinpoint landing from orbit.
In a "optional autopilot" scenario the game would have to release with a comfortable "land there button" that allows you to automatically land any capable craft to any reachable base, if someone has to be able to play and build colonies without being able to fly manual this would be an hard non-negotiable requirement.
If manually flying is a required skill for the game you could have a ton of gameplay there, a series of tutorial missions that teaches you how to perform a pinpoint landing using landmarks and practicing a bit, a tech tree branch that unlocks atmospheric prediction for landing trajectories, colonies having launch pad hardware that needs to be installed on the ground and navigation networks in orbit to allow for automated landings for boosters or supply-route automated missions.
A glider bigger margin of error or a powered plane ability to do multiple passes and landing attempts would mean nothing if anything you build will be able to automatically perform the perfect landing and the perfect suicide burn.
An optional autopilot to allow people not willing to learn how to fly to play the full game anyway comes with the harsh requirement of having no (main) gameplay loop that revolves around flying.

[Chilkoot]

Messaggio originale di Mastah:

I said on the real forum a bunch of times that they should totally replace the action group system and the KAL editor with some easy to use VPL with maybe a full programming system with an easy to use real world language like LUA or Python.

If memory serves, the modder they interviewed following the KSP announce said the new parts are all LUA scriptable - this was one of the guys at the reveal that was part of the modder consulting team. This interview was I think the one a noisy bar, though I'd need to go back to confirm.

I'm not a LUA guy, but I'll take it if it's built-in and we don't need a mod to build things like RTLS boosters (which should be very challenging but super awesome).

Messaggio originale di Mastah:

Lets me use a single maneuver as an example, something that's going to be relevant for colonies: pinpoint landing from orbit.

This is a good discussion case, and there's no black/white answer. At the end of the day, the dev. will have to decide - if they're going to have some kind of autopilot - whether to permit it in this kind of situation, or restrict the functionality to other maneuvers. Perhaps landing accuracy and/or docking is out of scope for the auto-pilot, or maybe achieves are disabled if you're using the hand-hold... or maybe they don't care and will permit it outright.

It's going to be a tightrope to design something that is challenging/rewarding/quasi-realistic but also accessible/newb-friendly esp. for multiplayer jump-in. We know Intercept intends to make later-game more accessible, but whether their lever to do that is just the tutorials or something else remains to be seen, I suppose. I'm not opposed to easy modes for new players, but I also want to see on my screen in some capacity that I've completely nailed some very difficult undertaking without resorting to nanny-mode.

[Dingo]

Messaggio originale di Mastah:

Messaggio originale di -VG- Napster:

i don´t see a problem with it unless it´s optional.... i mean we had mechjeb (mod) in the first one wich was basicly a autopilot and after sometime instead of flying up yourself i would let deal mechjeb with it and it still was amazing to watch and play specialy because you had the ability to choose to use it or not

"I don't see a problem in removing driving from F1, if you want to drive you can enable the optional option hidden under 'advanced settings'".

Nope, nope and nope. KSP is mainly a game about building and flying rockets, you can't remove half of that without changing the whole game, it would be like making guns and violence optional in Doom.

This is exactly the kind of dumbing down people fear they could implement.

As an optional part, that you would research and could choose to attach I would enjoy.

Also It's a sandbox game, you should have the choice to use the 'auto pilot' or not.

As For what you said about removing driving from F1 - Check out Motorsport Manager - It's all about research, designing and building the team/car - you don't actually drive it. Some people like the management of things in game.
Also with KSP1 - I often use Mechjeb for the more mundane tasks - such as refueling rockets, getting basic stuff into set orbits and building a communication network - because repeating the same damn rocket launch 10+ times gets old.
Also when doing something new, such as landing on a fresh planet, I would manually control the ship - this way I could check for a area to safely land and also abort. But once a 'colony' was established, flying in and out gets boring for repeating tasks - I would rather focus on building new ships and exploring.
I also would like to be able to try and build some of the 'Elon Musk rockets' have them boosters landing back at a base.

Everyone is talking about the 'realism' of having to manually pilot your space ships. We don't even do that anymore these days - no way could a human land a rocket on a floating platform at sea.

I'm sure some people will jump on saying the standard 'but you cant do that because I dont like it' - if you have the choice then you dont have to use it - you can be the 'hardcore' gamer you wanna be, but allow others to play their way.

[Mastah]

Messaggio originale di Dingo:

As an optional part, that you would research and could choose to attach I would enjoy.

Also It's a sandbox game, you should have the choice to use the 'auto pilot' or not.

The point here is: KSP2 is based on colonies, to build a colony you will need to land multiple times at the same place from orbit, if you can't fly you can't do that normally, is that something that you'd want to have an autopilot for? I landing at a precise spot from orbit a skill that you think should be optional from the beginning of the game?
Managing to land back at the KSC after a Mun mission is that something you consider a matter of flying skill and planning or it should be an autopilot function?

In KSP1 bases and stations are functionally useless for gameplay progression so pinpoint landings are just something cool to do when you aim for the KSC, in KSP2 colonies are going to be central for fuel production, as extraplanetary launch centers and for tech progression so being able to land at them from orbit becomes a crucial skill if you want to go past the first few missions.

Messaggio originale di Dingo:

As For what you said about removing driving from F1 - Check out Motorsport Manager - It's all about research, designing and building the team/car - you don't actually drive it. Some people like the management of things in game.

There are dozens of space-related management games, KSP isn't one of those.
You want to manage a space program or a colony?

• Oxygen Not Included
  
• Surviving Mars
  
• Mars Horizons
  
• Rimworld

Those are just the ones I can think of on the spot, without searching for any new one I don't know about and, with a bit of a stretch, we could also fit a Factorio or Dyson Sphere Program in there.
I love management games but you can't deny that factory games, colony sims and city builders are prolific genres, you can find dozens of worthwhile management games like these.
How many worthwhile flight sims in which you can build your own rockets with orbital mechanics are out there? KSP, if we lower the quality bar a bit we can include Simple Rockets and that's it.
2 Indie games, no publishers, no bigger studios, nothing. KSP2 is supposed to be the first one to be developed by a properly funded studio.
You're asking here to pick a game that would be the third in existence in a whole genre (and the first one in said genre to have proper funding and a real studio behind it) and turn it into a genre that's already popular and overcrowded with new titles.

Messaggio originale di Dingo:

Also with KSP1 - I often use Mechjeb for the more mundane tasks - such as refueling rockets, getting basic stuff into set orbits and building a communication network - because repeating the same damn rocket launch 10+ times gets old.
Also when doing something new, such as landing on a fresh planet, I would manually control the ship - this way I could check for a area to safely land and also abort. But once a 'colony' was established, flying in and out gets boring for repeating tasks - I would rather focus on building new ships and exploring.

If that's your problem then problem solved, the game will have a "supply route system" what's that? It allows you to repeat a flight automatically after you've done it once manually. That was confirmed months ago and it's not the matter at discussion here.
Solving the "milk run problem" has been the main argument against colonies when the game was revealed and that's why the supply routes were one of the first things Nate Simpson revealed to exist on the forums.
Also given the amount of standard containers seen in the trailer it's not impossible to imagine that the game will have its own "SCU" (Standard Container Unit) available to allow you to "prove" a rocket with a test container and then put it whatever actual cargo you want in the automated flights.

Messaggio originale di Dingo:

I also would like to be able to try and build some of the 'Elon Musk rockets' have them boosters landing back at a base.

With the kind of autopilot suggested here there would be no challenge in that, at this point we can just skip the whole "the booster actually flies itself back" and put in a passive system like the mod "stage recovery" does.
Unless you want the challenge, then it would be fun to have a system more like the mod "FMRS" which allows you to asynchronously fly both parts of the mission (the booster and the second stage, the B-52 and the X-15) and then automatically merge the 2 saves to have the results of both flights in your main one.
Or we could have a system that requires you to do some test hops to "certify" a booster and that would enable the boostback and landing in flights.
But with how easy it is in KSP to make outright SSTO boosters and land them after an orbit having detachable reusable stages it's not exactly a core gameplay element, it's just something cool to build, cool but useless (and not even that cool if it's an autopilot doing all the work).

Messaggio originale di Dingo:

Everyone is talking about the 'realism' of having to manually pilot your space ships. We don't even do that anymore these days - no way could a human land a rocket on a floating platform at sea.

The only ones ever touching the "realism" argument are the ones proposing to have the autopilot, nobody here used realism as an argument against autopilot. At this point I have to assume that its being brought on again and again only to poison the discussion.

Messaggio originale di Dingo:

I'm sure some people will jump on saying the standard 'but you cant do that because I dont like it' - if you have the choice then you dont have to use it - you can be the 'hardcore' gamer you wanna be, but allow others to play their way.

It's not about "hardcore" anything. In a flight sim learning how to fly and gameplay centered around the player being able to fly are crucial.
It's not being "an hardcore gamer" if I don't want to have guns removed or made optional in DOOM.
I don't care if you mod flying out of the game, what you do in your save doesn't matter to me, what I care about is that this game is designed with the same core design pillar that KSP1 had "Build and Fly cool rockets", not "Build a cool rocket and watch it fly itself while you play discount 'Surviving Mars' on Mun".

I'm not against some kind of "training wheels" in that makes flying optional, but I want the game being designed and balanced with manually flying in mind, especially since they said that they're designing every planed and moon to be a different "landing puzzle" and not just a matter of more Delta V and with colonies and bases (and landing to them) being prevalent in the game's progression.
(to use the DOOM analogy, I don't want the game to be mostly platforming not to bore the "no guns" people, you'll have to know when you enable that that you'll find a lot of empty arenas and boss rooms on your path)

[Mastah]

Messaggio originale di Chilkoot:

I'm not a LUA guy, but I'll take it if it's built-in and we don't need a mod to build things like RTLS boosters (which should be very challenging but super awesome).

It's not about being a LUA or Python fan, it's about having whatever real world language that has a really simple and readable syntax, I hate when devs made up their own languages and make them as unreadable as possible and a pain in the ass to write in (every function is a 2 letter combination, every line must begin with the runes ᚩᚾ and finish with the runes ᚳᚹᚢ)

Messaggio originale di Chilkoot:

This is a good discussion case, and there's no black/white answer.

Well it really is black or white, it's the point of the whole discussion, pinpoint landing is one of the most difficult flying skills to master in KSP, you either accept that every player has to learn how to fly and navigate from orbit to the ground or you'll want a pinpoint landing autopilot.
I use that as an example precisely because there isn't much middle ground there.

[Chilkoot]

Messaggio originale di Mastah:

Well it really is black or white, it's the point of the whole discussion, pinpoint landing is one of the most difficult flying skills to master in KSP, you either accept that every player has to learn how to fly and navigate from orbit to the ground or you'll want a pinpoint landing autopilot.
I use that as an example precisely because there isn't much middle ground there.

I don't think we've even heard whether pinpoint landing will be part of the gameplay in KSP 2 - it's an interesting consideration, but just an assumption at this point. We've heard that there will be an initial colony-type ship we need to land, but the amount of precision needed for that landing when selecting a colony location hasn't been shared yet as far as I know, and whether we will need to (or even can) land on that colony again is also unknown.

It could be that we just need to do the initial landing in the right neighbourhood of where we want to build, or we'll select from a few starter locations near where we land. I don't think anyone from Intercept has mentioned landing at/on the base again for any reason. Bases may just not work like that at all.

There's a gameplay opportunity there tho - exactly the kind of mechanic I'm hoping for: IF you can pull off some crazy maneuver like pinpoint landing on the base, you receive some kind of in-game benefit. Perhaps you can land new modules/supplies to speed up base production, or provide some benefit like 10% increased production vs. those who did not perform that action (or performed it with nanny mode).

Incremental advantages granted for doing difficult things is a smart way of both permitting hand-hold modes for new/casual players, but also rewarding people for accomplishing difficult things without assist modes. It's win/win in almost every way. Casuals still get to enjoy the full game progression experience, while hard-cores are rewarded with significant perks (fuel efficiency bonuses, population booms, unique tech unlocks, maybe locating hidden planets, etc.).

[Mastah]

Messaggio originale di Chilkoot:

I don't think we've even heard whether pinpoint landing will be part of the gameplay in KSP 2 - it's an interesting consideration, but just an assumption at this point. We've heard that there will be an initial colony-type ship we need to land, but the amount of precision needed for that landing when selecting a colony location hasn't been shared yet as far as I know, and whether we will need to (or even can) land on that colony again is also unknown.

It could be that we just need to do the initial landing in the right neighbourhood of where we want to build, or we'll select from a few starter locations near where we land. I don't think anyone from Intercept has mentioned landing at/on the base again for any reason. Bases may just not work like that at all.

Well, I suggest you do a read of Nate forum account history, he revealed quite a bit of info on this, to simplify what matters here we know that:

• You could if you really wanted try to set up a self sufficient colony with only one, huge, lander, but the way they did phrase it made clear that it wasn't the common, intended way.
  
• You'll bring the first modules from home either landing or assembling them in place (it's implied that you can move around colony buildings as kits or resources).
  
• We know that colonies are going to be crucial to manufacture advanced fuels for the new engines, that fuel has to go from there to where you'll use it (let's take the Orion nuke pogo stick engine as an example, you're going to need advanced resources and facilities to build the nukes it uses and probably you're not going to take off with nukes directly from were you make them, that would make your fuel producing colony a single-use one).
  
• We know that colonies can develop to the point of becoming launch centers but that's not a given and not automatic by just bringing in a "launchpad" module like in Extraplanetary Launchpads, the Colonial VAB we've seen in footage it's as big as the VAB at KSC (and KSP2's VAB is much bigger than KSP's).
  
• We know that, and I quote it since it's a recent reveal:
  

  Messaggio originale di Nate Simpson on official forums:

  ... different fuels are derived from different resources, and what you discover and harvest has an effect on what you are able to build. I'm especially excited to see how people use non-optimal engines in creative ways when they have to work within unusual resource constraints.

  Source[forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com]
  And this means that you won't find every resource everywhere and thus having mining outpost spread around to get resources you don't have at your main colonies is going to be a thing.
  
• Each colony is going to have its own progression going on, based on resources available, boom events and other unknown factors.
  
• You build the colony using an interface called the BAE (Building Assembly Editor) not too dissimilar from how the VAB works but in this you have an inventory of parts and resources, you start with modules brought in kits from other colonies or the KSC and, through progression, you end up being able to build new modules directly from available resources.

To me all of that makes clear that landing at a given location is going to be a required skill, I give for granted that there's going to be a recovery range, like 0% recovery costs if you land on the landing pad and going up from there the farther you go from the colony but that most likely is not going to be like in KSP1 that you can recover a craft from all of Kerbin, you probably have to at least land in the general vicinity of your colony to be able to recover the craft and use the resources, kerbal or parts it contains.

Messaggio originale di Chilkoot:

There's a gameplay opportunity there tho - exactly the kind of mechanic I'm hoping for: IF you can pull off some crazy maneuver like pinpoint landing on the base, you receive some kind of in-game benefit. Perhaps you can land new modules/supplies to speed up base production, or provide some benefit like 10% increased production vs. those who did not perform that action (or performed it with nanny mode).

Incremental advantages granted for doing difficult things is a smart way of both permitting hand-hold modes for new/casual players, but also rewarding people for accomplishing difficult things without assist modes. It's win/win in almost every way. Casuals still get to enjoy the full game progression experience, while hard-cores are rewarded with significant perks (fuel efficiency bonuses, population booms, unique tech unlocks, maybe locating hidden planets, etc.).

Obviously you can play a lot with bonuses based on landing precision (or better recovery costs of some kind going up with the distance from the target), but to do that you have to consider flying an integral part of the game which you do since you're calling the autopilot "nanny mode", I have no problem with that, just like I have no problem with Minecraft having the creative mode since most of the new content, gameplay and dev focus is given to survival anyway.

[gesundheit]

Manual piloting a craft successfully is extremely rewarding. Both in the sense that you accomplish a difficult task and that you literally increased your brain power by engineering a machine and using geometry on the fly to complete said task.

I don't know if they'll make autopilot a thing or at what point in the progression of the game it will be available, but I'll not use it because half the fun for me is to manually insert a craft into orbit and send another craft to meet it and dock with it.

I spent my first 2 months playing this game sending kerbals into space to never return, crash or burn up in the atmosphere. When I finally took the time to learn, I was sending craft out to "rescue" those kerbals lost in space.

That immense sense of accomplishment sent my ego into orbit and beyond. If I did that with an autopilot my ego would have never left the VAB.

If any of you are struggling with piloting, do yourself a favor and look at the guides to learn piloting/orbital insertion. You will be amazed at how fun this game is when you build something and make it meet another object in space.

[Dingo]

Messaggio originale di gesundheit:

Manual piloting a craft successfully is extremely rewarding. Both in the sense that you accomplish a difficult task and that you literally increased your brain power by engineering a machine and using geometry on the fly to complete said task.

I don't know if they'll make autopilot a thing or at what point in the progression of the game it will be available, but I'll not use it because half the fun for me is to manually insert a craft into orbit and send another craft to meet it and dock with it.

I spent my first 2 months playing this game sending kerbals into space to never return, crash or burn up in the atmosphere. When I finally took the time to learn, I was sending craft out to "rescue" those kerbals lost in space.

That immense sense of accomplishment sent my ego into orbit and beyond. If I did that with an autopilot my ego would have never left the VAB.

This is the correct response - dont know if they will but should they do so, I'll choose not to use it.
Honestly I spend like 85% of my KSP piloting the craft myself.
The reason I'm pointing out how you are the 'correct' response is because you didn't go crazy like Mastah. Use or dont use, its a players choice.


Also Mastah - you can play Doom without Guns - hands and chainsaw :P

[Mastah]

Messaggio originale di Dingo:

The reason I'm pointing out how you are the 'correct' response is because you didn't go crazy like Mastah. Use or dont use, its a players choice.

Also Mastah - you can play Doom without Guns - hands and chainsaw :P

Maybe you're right and I'm crazy in wanting to keep being able to play KSP as a requirement to play KSP, or maybe you don't understand game design well enough to understand that making being able to fly optional will have consequences on how the game will be designed just like making the chainsaw a viable easy option in Doom for people who can't shoot straight would radically change the design and balance of the whole game for everyone.