0.7.17 Round two

[redcoat22]

I played through another NASA sandbox game with a personal goal of getting to the moon before 1975 (which I finally did) and not skipping rocket programs in an attempt to “game the game” but instead using the rocket programs as payloads require. This worked surprisingly well and was more fun.

In my last feedback post in the other forum I suggested that Astronauts were a problem with skills being too low. I didn’t suffer many fatalities this time and managed to get them into the 90% range by Apollo. Now I think the biggest problem here is not the initial training time (which should be long) nor the low starting skill rate but instead the advanced training for astronauts is really long, too long in my opinion.

I play on the easiest level and the game seems impossible to me to get to the moon by 1969 without massive risk and lots of luck. My opinion is that Easy should be easy so that my kids could play and enjoy the game and get excited about space history as many of us did with BARIS years ago.
You asked me why it was hard for me to get to the moon sooner, so here are my thoughts.

The early game seems well balanced and moves along nicely.

Gemini seems to be hampered by cash, in that I cannot seem to launch repeated missions in the mid-sixties and must wait for cash, the Titan simply costs a lot. Prestige is never a problem. Perhaps launch costs (not the program fees) of rockets needs to be reduced? I was careful not to have too many upgrades and only 14 SET during this period which seems appropriate.

The transition from Gemini and Apollo is further hampered in that I cannot even begin to R&D the components until I raise 40k to open the program (this kind of cash doesn’t come into play until the late sixties!). I would think the program should be much cheaper so I can get started sooner. The real Apollo program was open for years before the first launch. The launch costs of the Saturn Booster should manage to keep the player from using the Apollo components too soon if that is a concern.

Flight controllers and the UI

Many of us have suggested that the UI is a bit clunky. I have tried to think of ways to improve it and I understand why this isn’t easy. One thing I thought of is actually assigning a SET employee into a role that is depicted with the requisite symbol on their profile on the SET management screen (propulsion, guidance, etc.) and make it sortable. Similar to how we do it now for each mission except this would flag him as that type of employee (and you can change it as needed). This would allow the player to see what personnel he has and the expected roles for those SET personnel at a glance. For instance, as my program grows and I see mission requirements for more people in propulsion I can quickly add some new hires or transfer others into that group. When I go to assemble my launch, each section would offer those people assigned to that group and I can select them. To take this concept further, the main SET page could only list the five “departments” and the amount of people assigned there (this would be less cluttered), once you click on the department you would then see the individuals inside them.

Lastly, I saw your post about NASA and the use of their logo. It seems to me this game is a highly educational program and it honors space flight. I would be surprised if they wouldn’t even consider supporting it like they did Kerbal Space Program. Lord knows they want support for SLS and this game would be another method they could do that with Phase III.

I have gone on long enough, any chance we could greenlight this for Steam?

[N_Molson]

Hello,

We thank you for your playing experience, as such returns are the material that allow us to fine-tune the balance.

I'll transmit your views about the UI to our lead developper, filters would indeed be interesting, its only that we have tons of stuff to implement currently.