Rocketology

I hadn't played or even heard of Kerbal Space Program until it kept showing up in my Steam queue after it's 1.0 release - even though I kept clicking "not interested". As it looked like an indie game aimed at kids, little did I know that it is aimed at kids, the kid that still resides in all of us looking and learning at new things in wonder! I finally, after the umteempth time it showed in my queue, I downloaded the demo - my life hasn't been the same since! I spent over 40 hours in about 3 days just in the demo - needless to say, I bought the game. From there, I spent 2 straight days trying to get to Mun and back - finally did it! And promptly realized on reentry that I had forgotten to attach parachutes... From there, I discovered the great Scott Manley who eloquently lays out many of KSP's complexities in a simple to understand way - Thank you Scott Manley! From there, I discovered Twitch where @EJ_SA, @DasValdez, & @MatoroIgnika were the trifecta of KSP live streaming at the time - and inspired me to give live streaming a go! So through Kerbal Space Program, I have learned more about space flight and engineering in general, than I did while being an R&D engineer with Hewlett-Packard! Thank you @SQUAD for creating a game that not only entertains beyond reason, it teaches, it inspires, and changes the courses of peoples' lives! This is truly the best game I have ever played, and continue to play (even well beyond 10K hours now) - it's truly a privilege! KSP 2 certainly has some huge expectations in it now!

KSP 1.12 is Coming in Hawt! Ground anchors for the win!

@JadeOfMaar As always, you are JadeOfMaarvelousness! Thanks again, my friend!

Thanks for the update on this! This is definitely one of my must have mods for flying planes!

@benjee10And another homerun! Seriously, another great work! Do you have a twitter handle or instagram for promoting your stuff?

@benjee10 Already so much praise in here from some heavy hitters, not sure it's possible to pour more sugar on the work you have achieved here, well done! And the video, is fantastic!

I was just commenting the other day that KSP 2 needs to look better than what you can achieve with modded KSP 1. And it looks like they are going to achieve it! This looks amazing! (This is from the visuals built into the JNSQ Planet Pack from Team Galileo)

This is something I didn't even know I needed! Well done!

@Zorg @CobaltWolf Seriously, I cannot believe how epic this mod has become! It's always been great, now it's truly a masterpiece!

Not sure why leveraging (in this case, meaning; taking maximum advantage) of something that you have already paid for and developed would take resources away from KSP 2? To leverage something, it must already exist - therefore KSP 2 would already be complete. And the audience for a Real Scale Real Solar System game only partially overlaps KSP, and that audience would be considerably larger if you didn't have to go through the mod installation process. Once again, given how much enthusiasm and public interest there is what is happening IRL, and this interest will continue to grow (it's the same reason KSP 1 *still* continues to sell, what do you think keeps paying for the free updates?) with everything that will be happening over the next several years. This is also one of the main reasons PD is investing so heavily in the development of KSP 2, the market is ripe for it (in their words, it will be a AAA title) - again, it makes sense to take that investment and leverage into other products, that don't compete, but compliment each other. (If you think they compete, then you need to give RSS/ RO RP-1 a go as it delivers an entirely different experience than vanilla KSP.)

You clearly didn't read the OP. It would be a separate game built on a similar platform - just as Grand Theft Auto V and Red Dead Redemption 2 are different games, but built on more or less the same platform. Skyrim to Skyrim Special Edition was a massive engine upgrade because it went from 32 to 64 bit. And arguably, they would have to done it to the base platform sooner or later anyway - and that base platform goes back to Morrowind. My point is that it just makes sense to leverage the core work into other platforms. Using the example above, GTA V cost an estimated $265 million to develop, but leveraging most of that platform into Red Dead Redemption 2 only cost an est. $80-100 million. That's a pretty radical reduction in dev cost for what is to most people an entirely different game. Admittedly, this is an extreme example, but it gets the point across. And it wouldn't dilute or take away from KSP 2 in any way - even if developed by the same teams, just as RD2 didn't hinder GTA V.

Squad still is. T2/ PD only bought Kerbal Space Program, not Squad, and then contracted back dev work for KSP to Squad.

To clarify, it doesn't have to be Intercept Games (which isn't an independent studio as Squad is - they have the full backing of Private Division and Take-Two, and access to their deep pockets) or take away resources from KSP 2. It can be any other studio under PD/ T2 - and why them? Because the core tech that is already being paid for KSP 2 could be leveraged into another game with minimal cost and time. This is what most studios do, and charge the full new game amount each iteration, i.e. every sports game franchise, just about every Bethesda game, etc. It's smart business, especially if targeting a narrower market, think Oblivion>Fallout 3> Skyrim>Fallout 4>Fallout 76 (same core tech, no overburdened studio, no sacrificing resources for one over another, just leverage). For those unfamiliar with how software (games) are developed, it's a combination of different teams and expertise - the team doing the core game programming are not creating the art. Generally speaking, once the core is laid out - that team usually moves onto another project as their part is 90% done - with maybe some residual bug fixing/ tweaking, so again, wouldn't over burden or take away resources.