Given those ethics, I wouldn't believe a new team got better conditions without solid proof.
If the game failed to gain traction would we be asking the devs to give a refund of their salaries?
> Given those ethics, I wouldn't believe a new team got better conditions without solid proof.
There’s nothing unethical with not sharing the bounties of success with those that aren’t sharing the costs of the risks.
They won't get a dime from me ever. For anything.
It's really amazing to me how fun they both are, given that they're just exercises in logistics.
Cities Skylines is about managing traffic flow, basically every other mechanic stems from that in some way or another. Not a surprise given the developers' previous games were the Cities In Motion series.
Factorio is about efficient transport of materials into machines that assemble goods, and about building up abstractions so you are constantly solving new types of problems with the resources you've automated already.
Both of them have helped me to better understand concurrency, throughput, and optimization. And playing Factorio with friends has helped me stretch my project management muscles. By halfway through the game I had to make a Trello board just to keep track of what needed to be done and where the bottlenecks were.
If you're in the mood for a thinking game I highly recommend both of them.
Orbiter vs Kerbal, etc.: http://www.thespacereview.com/article/3091/1
(Via XKCD, note title text: https://xkcd.com/1244/ - nice slingshots too )
I can live with the cartoon nature, but I do not appreciate "features" as window dressing for poor coding. The way KSP handles memory (loads everything 24/7) is ridiculous and necessitates many silly compromises. And don't get me started on how they handle "heat" and aerodynamics.
But reading that second article makes me think I'm using a drastically outdated version— and I haven't pursued the user-made add-ons. There goes some of my coming weekend... looks like I'll be giving it another shot.
If the devs are reading this, that’s the package you need: a basic autopilot for noobs.
That said, something like the per-stage ∆v display from KER (a mod) should IMO be stock, both during construction and in-flight - without that one piece of information, any trip past Kerbin orbit gets too difficult - you either end up seriously overbuilding your vehicle, or run out of fuel in the middle of a mission.
To that end, any feature that makes it easier for different players to approach the game in their own ways will make for a game that appeals to more people. Let people who want to control the rocket manually control it manually, and let those who want to just have nice, automatic, repeatable launches use the autopilot. Let people who want to fiddle with rocket designs do that, but also hand out a bunch of prefab rocket designs for when you just want to sit down and fly a rocket. Let the same people play the game in different ways in different sessions, depending on their mood.
Just don't try to tell them that there's only one proper way to have fun, because all you'll do with that is ensure that they tend to get bored more quickly.
I'm sure I've read research on this, but I'm not sure how to dredge it up from the internet. So I apologize for the lack of citation.
Anecdotally, in the Elder Scrolls series, I vastly preferred Morrowind's lack of unlimited fast travel. But I still used fast travel liberally in future installments, in no small part because the games were designed under the assumption that fast travel would be used. The takeaway is that you can't assume that players will ignore a feature just because they don't like it.
I totally agree about not adding the autopilot. Mechjeb exists for those people.
I think this fact should be communicated clearly. After all, the game has a bunch of "sorta but not quite" indicators already - like the burn time in maneuver nodes, or the orbit display that doesn't take into account atmosphere when deorbiting/projecting deorbiting with a maneuver node, etc.
I'd love to see Manley's info promoted to a game component or tutorial mod - it's already a huge contribution to the game as-is.
And also the fact that stages are numbered reverse from popular usage convention, adds a bit to the confusion.
Having voiced count downs and space chatter out of the box would also have added a bit more polish.
The same could be said about the Kerbal Engineer, which shows useful stats (dV, altitude, periapsis, apoapsis, etc).
I wouldn't recommend anyone starts on career mode, it's just too hard and too constraining for someone who's just starting and doesn't understand the basics.
But when you have some experience launching silly rockets into space, it becomes a really nice challenge to try and achieve the goals from career mode without having free reign over your technology and funds.
I like the science mode suggestion; gating off complex parts lowers the burden of choice, but without the financial pressure it's just "try this and learn to use it" rather than a race to unlock more powerful gear.
Learning efficient maneuvers to transfer orbits and rendezvous was where the fun is for me. My friend would often build ships with specific delta Vs for me to pilot to a particular body.
Also landing safely before landing gear was added was a great challenge.
`Kerbal Space Program: Making History Expansion is still in development and will be released as a paid expansion. Pricing and availability details will be announced at a later date.`
http://steamcommunity.com/games/220200/announcements/detail/...
