Feedback #22786
Career mode still incredibly grindy between achieving orbit and going to the Mun
Description
I play on a custom difficulty that's essentially Normal but with some realism tweaks from Moderate (plasma blackout and such, still get full funds/science rewards).
What I expect is that, after achieving orbit once or twice, it's relatively simple to move on to a Mun flyby. To do this in a sane manner (not doing it more than once, not bringing redundant experiments), that means bringing a scientist. On top of that, control is generally desirable and probe cores aren't a great option when they'll lose signal on the far side of the Mun, plus I don't want a huge risk of flipping over on the way back and burning up, which means needing a command pod (and not the really stupidly draggy spherical ones) with 2 Kerbals.
All in all, that means that I need Advanced Flight Control and Landing.
Now, on top of that, it gets unwieldy to use 1.25m tanks and engines carrying around that much stuff to the Mun. This means that I also need Heavy Rocketry, and ideally Fuel Systems too.
In practice, it takes a lot of effort to get the science to reach all three necessary techs to do this.
Furthermore, these are the types of contracts generally available between getting to orbit and doing a Mun flyby:- Test part (stupidly low science rewards, extremely grindy for science)
- High-gee (overly difficult, generally not worth it beyond stuff you can do right on the launch pad, rather grindy)
- Tourist (difficult before getting all three techs plus Space Exploration for the Hitchhiker Can, due to high drag on spherical options, grindy to get funds to upgrade facilities)
- Conduct surveys (very difficult and low rewards, so very grindy on both science and finds)
- Science from space around Kerbin (again science/funds grind)
Breaking Ground has some great stuff to do science...but all of it comes into play after you get Advanced Exploration (scanning arms) or all of Space Exploration, Miniaturazition, and Electrics. And Advanced Exploration requires upgrading the science building, which is a lot of funds in early career mode.
In addition, access to rovers early on would also at least allow easily gathering science from Kerbin, but to even make something resembling a rover, you need to either research the plane parts and rely on jet engines and landing gear (rather...silly, not to mention very annoying because of how easy it is to overthrust and crash), or get Space Exploration for electric wheels.
Overall, career mode has far too many options for gathering science gated far into the tech tree. Scrounging up every available EVA report and tons of ground science barely gets close to sanely doing a Mun flyby or multi-Kerbal orbital tourism.
I suggest the following improvements to the tech tree:- Move all crewable parts in Advanced Flight Control to Space Exploration, so that it's the only node needed for getting more crew options prior to landing on the Mun with the stuff in Command Pods
- Move the KV-2 "Pea" Reentry Module to Survivability so that there's a relatively early 2-Kerbal option if able to brute force past the drag
- Move the RoveMax Model S2 to Basic Science, so that Space Exploration is less crowded and rovers can happen as soon as the first probe core is available, so at least grinding science on the ground can be done fairly early
- Move the Probodobodyne RoveMate to Advanced Exploration, so that it's not so long before a decent rover body that's just a rectangular version of the OKTO comes along
History
#1
Updated by Nebbie over 5 years ago
Updated by I forgot to mention there's also the satellite contracts, but you need Electrics to even unlock them, and at that point you only have basic SAS so it's more difficult than bringing along an experienced pilot, and you need a fairing contract or there's serious drag issues. And you don't even get EVA report science while doing them, so they don't really contribute much to advancement.
I should note, my problem isn't with the contract types and their difficulty, each of them is in some way fun and rewarding and having them creates variety. The problem is that the science yield from them is so low that they essentially don't contribute at all to getting necessary techs to do serious exploration (2 science for taking a survey reading or testing a part splashed down...takes 90 science to get Space Exploration), and orbital tourism is particularly nasty because it basically demands those necessary techs as well otherwise everything will try to slam into the ground or burn up, all while only providing meager funds.
#2
Updated by Geschosskopf over 5 years ago
Updated by What actually makes the career grindy these days is that the total amount of available science has been reduced by about 1/2. It used to be that you got per-biome science for flying or being in low orbit over, each biome. You thus had an incentive to fly or rove around KSC early on, and then do a low polar orbit at Kerbin and Mun, which really eased the early-mid-game grind prior to doing a lander mission.
Now, however, this is all gone. There's only a single "flying over (Planet)" and "in space near (Planet)". This, IMHO, is a big mistake.