All Activity

I’m expecting them to quietly sit on this for a few months before coming forward and saying the plug is pulled. I had so much hope and optimism last week, and this week I’m just not feeling it. This game meant little to nothing to them, why should I let it mean something to me.

I think there's a "frog in boiling water" phenomenon playing out here. Remember, the game was announced in 2019, slated for a full release in 2020. Throughout its development, devs portrayed each successive delay as simply a "delay" because "excuse." This lead many to believe that at in 2019, the game was in a state that one could reasonably say was a year away from release. Even if it was seemingly two years, or even three, there is simply no explanation for how the game could be in its current state, given this information! This is why many feel "mislead." It is also probably a contributing factor in the project's cancellation- does this often happen to competent dev teams, in your experience? Only three years ago, when the game was delayed, the community unanimously agreed, "take your time, do it right." Our collective headspace was one in which the game would be released in the coming years. Fast forward to now, and we were popping champagne at the devs adding a tech tree and reentry physics into a buggy mess! That's quite the fall, and I'm sure it doesn't play well internally, either. Take Two know that the difference between KSP 2 and modded KSP 1 (KSP 2 was pitched to them) is, ideally, quality of life, stability, and performance. Implementing a modded KSP 1 experience with these three aspects required a ground-up redesign of the game, which is why they decided to go through the rigamarole of starting from scratch. Therefore, the features which actually matter, both to the community, and to whoever is assessing the progress of development inside, ought to be the core internal engineering challenges which the devs face. There is no hard evidence that they have solved any of these problems to a satisfactory extent, four years in. One can easily imagine a bloated, tangled mess of a source code which is probably easier to trash and redo than to fix, and that is simply a bridge too far for corporate. In fact, given the inexplicable events I described above, it is likely that this is the second time they've ended up in the same place, with few or no core problems solved more than 50%, and an indecipherable mess standing in their way. In short, their problems with feature rollout are FAR, FAR worse than, "we said it would take four months, it took eight." We're already at, "we said it would take a year, it's already taken 5, it'll probably take at least 3 more." And the specifics of what is taking so long may well be horrifying. The question is not whether or not they are planned. The question is, will they ever not be missing, without another restart in many areas? And if so, at what cost? Again, this is good, but none of these features require any of the substantial innovations which prompted the game to be made in the first place. When you take what we have, and you subtract what they could have done much more quickly and cheaply but updating KSP 1 and charging those millions of players DLC, you are left with probably less than nothing. By no metric does this qualify as a "success", especially from a business standpoint. If you already have a bowl of pasta, and there is free cheese on the table, and I give you a new pasta with cheese and charge you $50, I would expect you to leave a negative review. Otherwise, maybe I need to start an Italian restaurant! In all likelyhood, the behind-the-curtain of the game is in a poor state, which would explain the lack of communication. After the phiasco that was KSP 2's development thus far, any semi-competent publisher would want to fight the fire. I doubt that there is any honest communication they could give us which would alleviate our concerns. Allow me to introduce you to my friends "Madden" and "Call of Duty". That's directly from Steam, and it's on every Early Access title's store page. We knew what we were buying. And if you didn't... somehow... after all of that... well, I don't know what to tell you. It's pretty clear to most of us. But I digress. <...> So, if the game itself isn't the problem, why did it fail? In my opinion, the community. Us. I actually think its the opposite. Consider the review bombers. At least they bought the game! According to https://steamdb.info/app/954850/charts/ anywhere between 240-564k people bought the game, compared to 5+ million sold of KSP 1. Considering that the KSP fanbase is disproportionately filled with passionate fans who have a tolerance for bugs, many of whom have programming experience themselves, this is probably a dissapointing figure. Moreover, this number hasn't moved much since release. Nobody's buying the game. And I'm glad you're enjoying it and playing it, but you are a part of a vast minority. As of the writing of this post, there are only 199 people in the game on Steam, with the 24-hour peak being 378. If the KSP community, as a whole, was full of people who bought the game and left negative Steam reviews, KSP 2 would have much better figures (units sold, namely) to justify its continued development. Apparently there were about 70 people working on the game in some capacity (including out of office). At any given moment, there was probably one dev for every 20 active players. KSP 2 has received millions in funding from a major publisher with a bottom line. Want to play in the big leagues? You need more than 300 concurrent players. Even by Early Access standards, these are pathetic numbers for a cult-favorite IP with millions of fans. "Early Access" is not a blank cheque for having tons of bugs and sparse features. Consider Manor Lords, developed by a single dude. Or any successful EA title. If I sell you "print("hello world")" for $10 because all the missing features are planned, I'm ripping you off. And, to that point, when a consumer is wondering, "Is this game worth buying" they mostly (rightly) care about the following things: What is in the game Price How long will it take before the game is finished Will it ever get finished? Very little is in the game compared to KSP 1 with free mods. Even less was in the game when it received most of its reviews. The game has taken at least 5 years, and will probably take many more. These facts, combined with several other red flags which I've outlined elsewhere ad nauseum, signal that the odds of the game ever being completed have always been less than 100%. I think a dispassionate look would probably yield a figure closer to 50%, at any given moment. And finally, there is absolutely no excuse for an alpha build (make no mistake, that's what it is and has been) to be $50. Many people understandably expected more from a $50 experience- the price sends a message in itself. Especially to loyal fans who want to trust their beloved franchise. Finally, with regards to expectations set- The devs have repeatedly made misleading, even demonstrably false statements about the nature of the game. I've thought about making a grand compilation of these, and I tried to do so in conjunction with the community here: https://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/topic/217291-actual-quotes-for-substantiated-arguments-thread/ however the thread was shut down. You can read the thread, and the reasoning for shutting it down, and decide for yourself. Although, if I had to guess, if I compiled every demonstrably false statement (let alone misleading ones), I would probably end up with 10x what's in that thread. There are several interviews on Youtube from 2019-2023 in which Nate Simpson and others make claims about internal builds of the game and other things which are flat out impossible, and it was certainly very dishonest to continuously delay under the pretenses of "COVID" and "we're taking our time to do it right" which was the line for a while. Remember, there was never going to even be an early access, until some time in 2023. I contend that even taking into account material which was released immediately before the EA launch and post-launch, there has been dishonesty at multiple levels. I'm not going to say malicious dishonesty, because I don't know enough. Even supposing, though, that they never truly told a lie, and the state of the EA was clear at the time when people were buying it, it is NOT a fair or "honest" business practice to claim a product will be ready for YEARS, and then announce with little warning that only a prototype will be ready, and days before it goes on-market, reveal that it is barely functional. The EA seller - EA tester relationship is built on trust. Trust that the concerns of the community are being heeded, and trust that the game will eventually be completed. These issues are magnified when the EA is $50, and the company behind the game is a huge one who isn't going to actually run out of money like a small studio might. No rational person would trust that the development of KSP 2 will continue successfully and to the end, while delivering on all of what was promised. Even if you like the devs, and think they care about the game, which I do, their track record is simply not there. And when the communication is as described? You can forget it. \ That's what killed KSP 2. A long, expensive, fraught, unpredictable, dysfunctional development period for a product with a niche market. A total, justified, breakdown of trust between the Dev team and the once enthusiastic, engaged community. Low hundreds of active players. No end in sight. A lack of the technical progress which constituted the impetus for the game's creation in the first place. Not the community, capitalism, greedy executives, or 1,200 bad reviews on a game whose predecessor sold millions of copies, a full 15 months after the products release, and AFTER the announcement that the studio was already shut down.

True, about KSP1 having only been in development exactly only one year prior to 0.13.3. But, that said, even 0.13.3 was still a bloody buggy mess. Really, it didn't even get reentry effects until 19.0, though that was still the same year (2012). That said, despite the features moving faster, the game was LOADED with bugs. So, while it is definitely possible to include more features much faster, it's also likely that those features are broken and buggy. While it might seem there are many similarities between the two games, saying "Well, KSP1 was developed in THIS amount of time, so, why did KSP2 take so long?", isn't actually a valid or fair comparison. We have absolutely no idea what the code base looked like. We have no idea what kind of processes were in place. So it is absolutely possible that the KSP1 core is a complete mess of things duct taped together just to get them to work. Technology and hardware has also changed since then. APIs have changed. It's very difficult to directly compare the development between the two projects, despite their shared name and features (or planned features).

N 29

protoning

Don't worry, maybe they left an extra employee or two under the doormat.

Trust me, it would make me very happy for you to be right on this.

I honestly love this mod, thank you for the great planets!! I do have a question about Cind tho. I really like the style and vibe but I want to know if it’s possible to make the “lava lake” look more lava-ey. Is it a simple case of just editing the texture file myself?

Fair, but I am an optimist we will see what comes of this

Closure would’ve gotten at least some mutual respect, but with the wording of their EA marketing it seems like such clarity may lead to actual difficulties in some countries and territories. They don’t respect us enough to tell us the truth and pay that cost, so they leave us in limbo forever. I’d wager a few more bug fixes are on the way, some form of a colony update and then a long period of near radio silence while they hope everyone forgets this game.

By all reputable accounts 70 people at their Seattle studio out of their about 70 employees. Totally possible there is some clarification hear that makes this less bad… but they have left us with a corpo speak tweet for a week now. The time has come and passed to clarify before the worst was taken as the truth by the court of popular opinion.

While I do agree that we could see ksp2 get 1.0’d or outright cancelled we have no official confirmation of any dissolving of the dev team or the canceling of the game. All we know is that intercept layed off a few developers. we play ksp, surely we know how to have an appropriate reaction when a problem occurs Keep this post-mortem discussion in check

The only good thing I got out of trying For Science! Was that the frame rate was acceptable for medium sized crafts. (The science missions were fun, but without gameplay restrictions beyond science points I only played a few as I wanted to experience them for the first time with resource restrictions.) Framerate was terrible on launch but they did make a lot of progress there. It was just the death by a thousand cuts of bugs that kept the game unfun. I don’t have strong opinions on centered or left justified nav ball (outside of it should be an option) but does anyone prefer KSP1’s nav ball over KSP2’s? Outside of the font I mean. Anyways I agree with you here KSP2’s nav ball was better. There’s enough better about KSP2 that makes it hard for me to get back into KSP1, and so I remain in no mans land.

Guess I better post that test-1 and sts-1…

I suspect the extra added payload (and space) was a selling-point, as Starship's payload bay will actually allow you to lift a bungalow (estimated at 125 metric tons), and have space for a small UK 2-storey house, roof and all - I measured. That's enough space for a nuclear reactor, a ridiculous load of solar, an inflatable habitat and a vacuum-capable backhoe to shove dirt over it... and still have enough space for individual astronauts. Starship is its own prefab housing for Moon builders.

Comparing how long it took from initial paid offering of KSP1 till its last post 1.0 bug fix after multiple full DLCs to the time since the EA launch of KSP2 is not fair. As you are well aware KSP1 was not in development for a long amount of time before .12 (less than a year) while KSP2 has at minimum 4 years of development time before 0.1.

What would happen if I set MaxVerticalAccel to exactly zero and enable takeoff mode? Would I get a perfect hover mode that has a TWR of exactly 1 at all altitude?

I've always hoped that a modern planet pack like this existed! Best of luck to you, and this is an instant download!

First off, I’m glad you like the game. Your view is valid. So is mine that the game is not currently (and with the news unlikely to ever be) fun. On this quote I can agree with you. Doesn’t matter if it’s dev or publisher, the misleading communication to the community will lead to a breakdown in trust. And the publisher gave a 70ish member team longer than the indie devs got, and got less accomplished. After multiple delays. I’m with you that personal attacks and harassment is wrong, but let’s not act like the world is as black and white as dev=good and publisher=bad. They are currently missing, whatever your thoughts on nearly a week of radio silence after the news may be. The features we were told would be in the game in 2020 still aren’t. There is yet to be any new gameplay mechanic or feature that the first game didn’t have, outside of procedural parts and multiple craft in the VAB. Couldn’t disagree more. For the first time it is being reviewed as is and not based on hope for the future. Even “recommended” reviews say in their review that they wouldn’t recommend the game as is. Is KSP2 unplayable garbage? No not at all. But it’s a more expensive and buggier version of the previous game with a facelift. With the available comparison I don’t think negative reviews are surprising. An EA game is a risk, and we knew that buying it. But I don’t know of any EA game that fails to finish its roadmap that gets good reviews. That’s not an unfair reason to negatively rate the game. What’s the view comparisons to KSP1 videos? I don’t think this is a binary indication of a game being “fun” and an imperfect gradient but if we do look at it as a gradient it seems to be way less community engagement/ total fun than the predecessor. Sequels that are less good than their prior entry (even if not outright terrible as I agree there is some fun in KSP2) are usually not rated highly. This seems like straight forward victim blaming. It’s not the one unable to keep timelines and promises who is at fault, it’s the person who believed in those timelines. All of us who spent money on this game, we are why it failed. Not that it’s literally the only EA game I can even think of to only have one content update over more than a year, but the fans who noticed and complained. Is that really what you’re trying to say? Please explain further because that line of reasoning doesn’t make sense to me. These reviews are for precisely that reason. Someone not online who wants to buy this game should know that it seems highly likely development has ceased. If the publisher didn’t want this to happen they should have clearly communicated sometime in the last week. As it stands, a warning to future buyers is justified. And, idk how bad reviews for a game with no studio is how the game fails, and not the fact that the game now has no studio. Again I think you’re putting the cart in front of the horse. I never buy EA games. At least not for years. When this game came out I said that if it all went up in flames I would rather have been the fool who lost $50 and tried everything I could to support the game and have it still fail than have been a bystander. (Probably makes me an easy mark, but don’t worry there’s no other franchise I care about to this degree won’t be happening again) I bought the game knowing the risk. I did not review the game for months as the only honest review would be negative. I have been actively trying to give feedback on this game since day one. I may be grumpy sometimes but please show me where I have ever cursed out or attacked the devs or a fellow community member. Again I’m not perfect, I’m not saying I am but I genuinely don’t think I could be characterized as a hater. I’ve been passionate but (mostly) respectful. I apologize for all slip ups. But what more could I have done other than bought it, given a really long time before leaving a negative review, and trying to actively give all feedback I could? (Outside of bug reporting. I didn’t have interest in doing that and also paying for the product, so I’ll give you that.) But My point being is I’m giving you all of these views as an active contributor with the opposite view. I don’t think your a shill, so I hope this has fulfilled your request for honest engagement and why I personally disagree with your view that the community is at fault.

Then some people (maybe not you) would complain about how unplayable anything below 144fps is and use that ans an excuse to hate. Really some people today use everything they come up with to hate the game. I often do VTOL planes and thus have to keep close eyes on both altitude and vertical velocity. KSP2 solves that problem so I perfer its UI.

I am looking for a mod that allows converting ships into KK statics or other physics-less objects, while retaining the ability to turn them back and interact with the parts. The use case for this is alleviating ludicrous amounts of lag with ground base. Any suggestions?

lmao.

You're absolutely right about having little recourse. And that is unfortunate. But we could have also just asked for a refund. But I'd like to address each of your points individually? 1. Expectations raised by Intercept Games: While there are plans to implement certain things in the future, I personally didn't feel like there were any false expectations made. I got exactly what I expected to get. Can you provide some specific examples of expectations that were set and not delivered upon? 2. Expectations raised by the relative high quality of KSP1: Sure, but KSP1 was not always like this. Though, Early Access wasn't technically around back then, but if it had been we might expect that it would have been around the time that KSP1 was no longer free, which was version 0.13.3 demo back in March of 2012. The latest version was 1.12.5 in January of 2023. It took 11 YEARS of active development to get KSP1 to where it is today. KSP2 only released in Early Access on Feb 23', just over a year ago. 3. EA launch at full price: A fair criticism, I agree. Most games do Early Access at some kind of reduced price - but not all. Look at Star Citizen, for example. Their "Early Access" costs $60 at the bare minimum, and in some cases is thousands of dollars, depending on the package you get, all for an incomplete, buggy game that may never release. Same as KSP2 was not that long ago. There are some MMOs that have done this too, for example, Ashes of Creation recently sold Alpha-2 access for about $350. So while it's somewhat rare for singleplayer titles, the pricing is not unheard of either. 4. IG's initial apparent attitude of "we don't care what you think and we're not in a rush to fix it. Besides, there's nothing to fix, the game is great!!": I never got this impression, especially the "we don't care what you think" part, but they may have a point about not being in a rush to fix it. It's far better to take your time and make sure you do something correctly than to try to rush it in, especially in a game with tens of thousands of lines of code, where a single change can introduce dozens of bugs in seemingly unrelated features. I'd always urge caution over speed myself as well. And I do agree, the game IS great. It is. It's not done, but what IS done, is enjoyable. 5. First update took forever and fixed very little. And then the pace went down even further.: True. I think T2 may have pushed the game to have been released in Early Access long before it was actually ready to do so. Publishers do this too often, sadly. So the team crunches to get out a minimum viable product, knowing that they really needed many more months to even come close to what they wanted to release to begin with. Communication could have been better, I agree. They might have the same "issue" that most of us developers do - assuming that your customer understands the process even a fraction as well as we do. Mostly, they don't, and we (as developers) need to be better at understanding that and communicating in a way that is clear to everyone, not just those with technical or industry knowledge.

Floor 4833: a kitten doing cute kitten things 222105072024

Banned cuz ban! 222005072024