Cpt Kerbalkrunch

I love when things get to that point, too. Like you said, makes me feel like I'm running a real space program. And man do I miss Kerbal Alarm Clock. Where is @TriggerAuwhen you need him? Even when they finally added a planner to the stock game, I still used KAC. I need me some TriggerTech! Exactly right. Not many games allow such a disparity between play styles. You have RSS/RO guys who want ultra-realism. Then you have the guys who build the most absurd creations imaginable just to show it can be done. And then you have what I think is probably a majority; those of us who think space is cool, grew up on Legos, and now get to run our own semi realistic space program that we put together piece by piece. Harvester is a true genius.

This pretty much epitomizes the term "different strokes for different folks". While I often agree with you and @LameLefty, here we're in complete disagreement. I actually love the funds part of the game. I think it just adds another element to the overall game; especially early on. You need money to build rockets, of course, but you also need money to upgrade the KSC. Want patched conics? Yeah, that's kind of important, so you have to upgrade the Tracking Station. Heavier rockets? Upgrade the Launchpad. Want more than the 4 Kerbals you start with. Either take a rescue contract or hire them in the Astronaut Center. And each time you hire one, the price goes up for the next one. Then there's the contracts themselves. I look at each one and decide if it's interesting. If so, how much will it cost? How much will I make? Is it worth it? Then I try to stack as many contracts as possible to maximize profit. This, in turn, presents all new design challenges. If I need to plant a flag on Duna while putting a satellite in orbit while also putting a station with room for 7 Kerbals, a Science Jr (blah blah blah) in Orbit of Ike while also picking up a stranded Kerbal while I'm there, the mission (and the ship itself) gets pretty interesting. Granted, in the late game, you have so much money it no longer matters (true of any game where you collect gold or whatever). But it's just as true that once you unlock the Tech Tree, science no longer matters either. This is where I think maybe the Devs are onto something with the Resources aspect. You have to figure that you're always gonna need "resources" of some kind, right? If it's done well, I think it can maybe make all of us happy with the gameplay. Hoping so anyway.

I can understand why people are so disappointed in what was said during the AMA. There was a lot of "someday", "hope to", and "eventually" going on. Not exactly inspiring the confidence I think we all want to feel in the game going forward. For me, though, it was actually not by what was said but how it was said. I've been saying since the release that the game (as it stands) is pretty bad, but that I think it will turn out to be great when it's finally finished. I feel that even stronger now. Admittedly, I did not watch the video, I only read through Dakota's thread. But I was encouraged by it. I got the feeling that Nate is still extremely passionate about the game, and that he is wholly dedicated to the project. It gave me some confidence that they're going to deliver the game that's been promised (can we coin that as KSP prophecy, "The Game That Was Promised"? ). I figured it would be about 2 years, but we would get there. However, after reading through all the comments here, it looks like I might be in the minority. Makes me wonder if I took the wrong impression from the AMA. I sincerely hope not. I really want this game to succeed and become something special.

Pretty much all of those. Bugs can be dealt with, or even avoided if you know where they crop up. But the missing features are a killer. If I did not already have like 4,000 hours of KSP, I'd probably see the wonder in the game. But instead, I'm just bored. I load it up everyday, mess around in the VAB for a minute, then quit. Just kind of waiting around for it to get better. In the meantime, I'm trying to clear the ever-growing backlog of games I've yet to play. Each Steam sale I see something I like, so it just keeps growing. If I read off a list of games I have and never even tried, you'd probably be offended as a gamer. For instance, just started Dark Souls (I have all 3), so if you're posting from like 15 years in the past, I can say you should try it. It's pretty good .

This was known (and confirmed through a fair and democratic vote) to be the most important issue with this game. As such, I would lime to take this opportunity to congratulate you on, not only taking on this immense responsibility, but seeing it through to the end; and ultimately, prevailing. Kudos, sir. May your ships fly high.

Not true. They successfully changed the bottleneck from the CPU to the GPU .

This is a fair point. I would not normally be critical this early. Just going by what I've seen, I think low-spec systems are gonna struggle with this game no matter how much optimization they do. I think a realistic goal is to get the game to run well on low-end systems, all settings on low. If they can do that, it would at least be playable for everyone. I would consider that a success.

You definitely have a point. The reason I haven't exceeded 200 parts is because there's no reason to. I only did it in the first place to see if I could. The fact that there's not much to do yet doesn't a great selling point, but that's where we are for now. I still think it's a fair question, though. We've seen enough, I think, to have a good idea of future performance. High-end rigs will do well, low-spec machines will struggle. Though it took a decade, KSP1 was able to thrive like this. @Dakitesshad a good point about the march of progress. New CPUs and GPUs are released, people keep upgrading and, over time, more and more people are able to enjoy the game. If that's the case again, it's gonna be a while before you see a high player count.

I had high hopes, as I think we all did, and they were dashed in the first 10 minutes of playtime. I think anyone who's honest would have to agree. Anyone in any business knows it's always better to under promise and over deliver. Not sure what went wrong here, so I won't speculate. Where we go from here is the bigger question. I build 1,000+ part ships in KSP1 quite a bit (manual strutting means part counts reach absurd levels quickly) and, for the most part, I get good performance. Low FPS on launch, but no stuttering, and performance climbs quickly as you drop boosters. I haven't exceeded 200 parts in KSP2 yet, so I'll have to experiment more. The performance has actually been about the same for me. The reason why I voted "no" in this poll is that I don't think it'll ever be stable at 1,000 for the majority of players. I think it's going to be much like KSP1. If you have a high-end machine, it'll be great. If you don't, you'll stutter along at 3fps. I was so excited this game was finally being released, I went out and bought a new, high-end PC (kinda crazy, but there ya go). At the time, I thought a 3080ti was overkill. When I saw the recommended was a 3080, I couldn't believe. My first thought was that my shiny new PC wasn't so "high-end" after all. It was barely above the recommended specs. My second thought was that they just priced out a lot of players. Especially younger players. I dreamed of Alienware for 20 years. When I could finally afford it it was garbage made by Dell and I returned it. I don't think this is the way to grow the fanbase. We need younger players to get hooked on the game. If they can't afford it, that's not gonna happen. Hopefully the switch to the new Unity version mentioned in the Dev Diaries can solve a lot of this. Sounds like a long way off, though.

This is a great point that I hadn't considered. I always assume everyone on here is a long-time player who was counting down the days 'til KSP2. In that case, it's kind of a coin flip. If you don't mind the bugs and missing features, or just the general growing pains, than it might be worth it to stick around and see how the game progresses. That's basically what I'm doing. For a new player, however, I would definitely recommend skipping this game. If you're interested, get KSP1 (with both expansions if you can) and you'll have a much better experience all around.

Absolutely. I try to always have a TWR around 1.25-1.5 (give or take). It can be overkill at times, but I want a burn to be as short as possible. And when I need to capture or make a plane change, I want it to happen quickly. Not to mention the ability to shed speed in a hurry when landing. I love smaller engines as much as the next guy (huge fan of the Spark), but I often attach them in symmetry to keep the smaller profile fuselage with added power. This is probably why I never use nuclear or (God forbid) ion engines. I know these are often favored for their great efficiency, but it's more than drowned out by their drawbacks (imo). Heavy and weak? No thanks.

I'm with you on the cartoonish nature of some of the game's look, and I think multiplayer is a long way off, but the game itself can be sharpened considerably in a (relatively) short time. Just adding atmospheric heating and some type of progression mode would change my entire opinion of the game. At that point, it would basically be a paired down version of KSP with shiny new graphics. That would be enough for me to make a permanent switch, I think. Player count would certainly rise; perhaps by quite a bit. For now, I keep coming back (the KSP bug has me again, and I can't seem to shake it, so I convince myself to give it another try) only to end up the same way. I mess around in the VAB (with no real purpose) and finally give up because launching rockets is kinda pointless when I know the end is gonna be so underwhelming. On the plus-side, I'm definitely encouraged that Nate addressed this specifically in his first post after the patch. They obviously know it's a huge problem that takes a lot of the fun out of the game. Hope it's solved before I'm cured of the KSP bug again.

I think your point about failure of imagination is a good one. It's just accepted now that multiplayer is the way to go, and everyone seems to be doing it. Not a multiplayer guy myself (limited amount of time, and often have to walk away from the screen; which makes KSP ideal), so I don't have much feeling about it one way or the other. It's no coincidence that MP is the last part of the road map, though. It'll be the toughest feature to implement by far. I imagine it will be SOI based, but I still have a hard time figuring out how they'll make it work. If I need a 3 month orbit to come around to your space station, that presents challenges. One way I think it'll really work, and BDArmory proved it, is in aerial combat. There are already games that do it well, but the uniqueness of KSP completely sets it apart. The KSP physics, the settings of Kerbin or Laythe, and just being able to create your own plane piece by piece however you want. I think it was a big mistake on Squad's part not to put some development time into it; and maybe even a DLC. It would've been a great way to expand the fan base. Whether it's 1 on 1 combat, huge aerial dogfights, teams, tournaments, there's a lot of opportunity there. Again, not an MP guy (and I don't really build planes cuz I'm terrible at it), but I would really like to see that and I'm pretty sure I'd find the videos entertaining. Still think it's a long way off, though.

With the wobbly nature of the current game's rockets, I think "Moar Struts" is the better rallying cry . In seriousness, though, I would say Boosters. I like building large, multi-Kerbal vessels. I find that cheap, powerful boosters to get your ship out of the atmosphere to be extremely useful. Design and execution are of obvious importance, but somebody's gotta do the heavy lifting.

This is correct. I was just guessing that he was on a standard return mission, but if he's looking for extreme efficiency in maneuvers, the multiple pass through method is the way to go. I'm just too impatient for that .

This is assuming you went to land on Kerbin and not reestablish orbit for some reason: As long as you have a shield, you don't actually need to slow down. Kerbin's atmosphere will do that for you. I've survived as high as 8km/s with an Mk1 Command Pod and shield. Just set your PE on Kerbin at around 35km. Quicksave along the way, cuz you may need to make adjustments. You may land on the first try, or you might pass through and swing around again. As long as you get captured by Kerbin, you're good. You may need to reload and adjust your PE up or down. You may be coming in too hot and blow up, or too high and not capture. Also, any fuel you have left, burn retrograde just before or just after you hit the atmosphere and stage your engine off. Any speed you can shed will help. Experiment a bit to see what works best.

Ah, now I get it. You came on here to flex, but did it poorly .

You're a sly one, sir. I was checking the voting numbers when I finally realized you pulled a fast one. No matter how someone votes, they're agreeing with you. Pretty slick. Or everyone else already noticed and I'm just an idiot. Or both .

If this thread has been truthful (which I'm not entirely convinced of), then he already knows there's a serious cooling issue. He says he has a 3090ti that needs its own AC. I have a 3080ti and I run at 4k, all settings on highest. GPU always runs at 99%, but never gets over mid-60's Celsius (not sure what that is in real temperature ). Loaded the game on my laptop as well. It's 3 years old, but a 12 pound behemoth with a 2080 Super desktop GPU. Again, all settings on high (at 1080p, of course), GPU runs at 99% without ever exceeding 70 Celsius. Granted, the fans are as loud as the rockets, but it keeps cool. I'm sure you already know there's something weird about this. If your high-end rig can't keep cool, you screwed up the build (or you bought Alienware ).

This guy's a triple threat. Bad build, bad result, bad attitude.

The answer to this is obvious, and everyone on the forum knows it (no matter what they say out loud). Jeb was always first. Female Kerbals were added later because their omission was glaring (though many would argue that Kerbals had no gender at that point). Everyone loves Val, but Jeb is Jeb (ever hear of Mechval?). The problem with threads like this, however light-hearted their intent, is that they will devolve into weird arguments about things that have no place in a gaming forum. In summary, if you're gonna make this argument, the best way to do it is just to say "Jeb-level sounds better than Val-level". Which it does.

Not sure that first one qualifies as a blimp. Looks like the Stay Puft Airplane .

You should trademark that name. It's a good one.

This is interesting. Had to run out last night, so I'll give it a try after work tonight. It'll definitely take a while, though. I tend to use a lot of struts, even in KSP1. I like my rockets to be as stable as possible, and I've always hated autostrut. I know people think that struts are ugly, but I don't mind. Just makes your rocket look very Kerbal .