Ahres

Mortoc, I know you preceded this with how you can't make any promises but man oh man does this have me pumped. The celestial bodies do indeed look INCREDIBLE from orbit. They make me excited to get down there and see it up close. As a big fan of having "boots on the ground" and seeing what's just over that next ridge, the current experience on the surface of the CB's is somewhat underwhelming. It's definitely better than KSP1, but the visual leap between KSP1-KSP2 from orbit is much bigger than the between KSP1-KSP2 on the ground.

Knowing that the Hype Train thread will soon be coming to a close, I thought it best to say a few words on this KSP2 Eve. I can't believe we're here, fellow Kerbonauts. While it's not how any of us envisioned it, it's still very exciting. Like @The Aziz, it may be awhile before I show up around the forums just so I can discover the Kerbolar system all by myself again just like I did all those years ago in KSP1. In the meantime, @Pthigrivi, you're the man. And that's quite a compliment coming from a Civil Engineer. Your insights and opinions have always been level-headed while still saying it like it is. Kudos. @Vl3d, I don't know how many eye-rolls you initiated from the rest of us around the forums but it was entertaining nonetheless. Nothing wrong with sharing your wishes and desires. @Minmus Taster, I expect a new avatar picture real soon. You've got a fancy new Minmus to savor. @Bej Kerman, we clashed frequently for a while there, but I suspect we're actually quite similar. Perhaps a multiplayer session someday down the road is in order to see if I'm right. @Nirgal, I bet I can guess where you're headed first when you get to play. I hope it's everything you hoped for, if not now, then in the coming updates. And of course, gratitude and apologies to all the Mods that guarded over the Train for its years-long trek. What a ride, am I right? There are some other Hype Train passengers I could ping before we disembark, but I'll call it good for now because our first stop is rapidly approaching: KSP2 0.1!

I'm excited for the revamped terrain! I love exploration and can't wait for there to be a higher degree of it in KSP2!

My open response letter to one Mr. @Nate Simpson, Creative Director at Intercept Games. Nate, I can't believe it's almost time. It's been quite the journey for the players, and even more so for the development team, I'm sure. It's funny, the dev team almost feels like friends to me after all the feature videos, dev diaries, and forum posts that we've seen from you, Shana, and others. We've gotten some insight on your personalities and interests and it's been fun to pick up on them. I wish I could say I speak on behalf of all players, in hopes that they share the same thoughts and sentiments that I do. Unfortunately, there will always be those who are both vocal and negative. While it can be constructive to have that feedback, I worry it can also slowly eat away at your sense of accomplishment and your pride. So I'm typing this out to you in hopes it's something that you and the team can hang your hat on as the first early access version becomes available to the world. What you and the team are attempting to accomplish is nothing short of impressive. Just ponder it... multiple solar systems at interstellar-scale distances right here in my office. Incredible. I've looked forward to this game ever since the announcement just those short years ago. The delays were a bummer, certainly. But as a true fan in your own right, I'm sure it was even harder on you. I honestly can't imagine the feeling of guilt and disappointment you've felt as the face of the team, knowing you had to tell us we had to wait longer. I like to think I'm someone who tries his darndest to understand others' perspectives, and so I apologize for any comments, etc. that the team has seen from the community that may have been taken personal or harder than any commenter might have realized. On a more positive note, let me just say that I am so pumped for the 24th. This is it. THE game. Kerbal Space Program 2. The sequel to my most favorite game ever made. I'm so excited for you and the team that you can finally share this with the world. I'm excited for Rafael's tutorials to be seen, that new players can pick up on some orbital mechanics without being intimidated. I'm excited for the parts! They look so good. Plus, the nostalgia will be prevalent getting to see some old parts now revamped. I'm most excited for the sense of exploration and discovery. The frontier spirit within me can't get enough of it. An in-person meeting seems unlikely, so this forum post is likely the closest I'll get to interacting with the team face-to-face. With that in mind, personally, this post seems underwhelming in conveying my understanding and my gratitude of the team. For that I apologize. There's so much more to say that likely will never be said. Regardless, let it be known to all at Intercept Games from myself, and the rest of us in the KSP Community: THANK YOU And Godspeed. -Matt/Ahres

Woohoo!! K-S-P! K-S-P! K-S-P!

We're supposed to be getting something tomorrow, according to folks around here that try to keep up with the Discord.

He said he even played multiplayer against Tim Dodd, The Everyday Astronaut! It was Dance Dance Revolution, however.

This doesn’t really acknowledge your post, but I’ll mention it in case you don’t know: even though orbit nodes relative to the ecliptic aren’t in the first game, you can use the orbit info menu in the lower left corner to see your orbit’s inclination relative to the ecliptic. Using this in conjunction with a maneuver node can get you a near-perfect equatorial orbit. Of course, in KSP2, some planets will have axial tilt which means the equatorial plane and the ecliptic wouldn’t be the same thus making things more difficult in that regard based off of what we have available in KSP1.

I like the clouds as well! (Just continuing the positive response before the cloud-sticklers get here.)

What is KSP Insiders? It's got its own logo and everything - with what looks like the ESA label associated with it.

I recall this as well.

I don't see anyone mentioning this interesting tweet from @ShadowZone. Think it's KSP2 related?

Wow. Now that's an explosion. That quite literally dwarves any explosion in KSP1.

See though, I keep pondering it because it's not a behavior that you can easily replicate on the surface of the Earth and test for yourself. My last sentence about the silhouette being darker is probably incorrect. I guess. Idk. The silhouette would be darker than its background if you have a nebula or the galactic disc behind it, but that nebula or disc (disk? Man... I'm losing all confidence in my intelligence haha) would have to be bright enough to be noticeable when you've got a brightly lit celestial object or nearby star in view anyway. The best way I can think of illustrating this would be if you found yourself in a certified Dark Sky location but there was cloud cover, i.e. an absolute dark environment and had a buddy standing 50 feet away shining a 1000 lumen spotlight at you, would you be able to see your buddy's phone screen that he's also holding and facing toward you but the brightness is turned all the way down? I honestly don't know the answer to that.

I must not be explaining this very well... because Joe's articles corroborate my thoughts, not disprove them. All these astronauts can see stars in space when they don't have a brightly lit side of a celestial body in view. In the screenshot I'm talking about, we have brightly lit sides of not one, but two celestial bodies in view so I'd expect to see only the brightest stars or no stars at all. The only reason we'd notice the bodies' silhouettes is because there's no stars there, there's a planet/moon in the way. The silhouette itself wouldn't be darker than the blackness of space.

Huh. I think I like the left more as well, honestly.

Excellent! Thank you. I fall in the latter camp as well, that I want to see in the game what I'd see if it was my own human eyes looking at the game's scene. Which makes me wonder if I'm not explaining very well what I mean, because almost all of your articles are talking about why cameras can't see stars. I don't care about cameras. Gimme eyeballs. Your last article actually talks about what the human eye perceives in space- specifically how Neil Armstrong couldn't see stars until he was in the shadow of the LEM, which is what I desire in the game. *The rest of this comment is Ahres just thinking out loud now* If there's a much brighter object in your field of vision (in real life) or on-screen (in the game) compared to much smaller and dimmer objects in the same view, I'd expect those smaller objects to be less visible or (maybe?) not visible at all. These KSP2 screenshots don't do this and my intuition tells me this is incorrect for our latter camp of human eyeballs. Sure, you could almost definitely still see some stars and the planets (though neither group would be as noticeable). But I don't think you'd be able to distinguish the silhouette of the unlit side of Earth/Kerbin against the faint color of nebulae or the galactic disk, would you? I'd just expect with the Earth/Kerbin and Sol/Kerbol in view that there'd be some stars against solid blackness. I guess you could argue in the Kerbal galaxy these nebulae are much brighter than any that we can see from Earth with the naked eye though.... So now a couple extra thoughts: 1) If my intuition is correct, that'd mean even when a sunlit vessel is in view/on-screen the skybox would be hard to see because the brightness of the craft itself would dominate the stars in the background- assuming you're relatively close to the star that's casting the light. And if you rotate the camera around to the dark side of the craft now you've got the sun in view which would be even more dominating than the vessel was. So... that'd mean you never get to take in the full glory of the skybox until you're on the dark side of a celestial body. Which this to me sounds amazing. It reminds me of the scene from Apollo 13 when Bacon/Swigert talks about how he can't wait to see for himself what the stars are like behind the darkness of the moon. Imagine an unsuspecting player that's seen the skybox at night while in the atmosphere of Kerbin and it's pretty, but then they get to orbit for the first time and after that orbital sunset the skybox just lights up and it's a countless number of stars that suddenly show. We've all seen the pictures, I'm sure. Just stars upon stars upon stars suddenly visible because there's no light from the nearest star or another nearby celestial body or an atmospheric glow that's hiding the view. That would be an awesome experience. Especially for someone that didn't know it's coming. 2) Another situation that arises from this make-the-appearance-of-the-game's-flight-scenes-be-similar-to-what-the-human-eye-would-see argument would be when you're out at Eeloo or beyond wouldn't the celestial bodies be dimly lit? Sure your eyes would adjust and see details but it'd still be noticeably less lit than if you're at Kerbin. That'd be kind of a cool gameplay element that we don't experience in KSP1: to work in low-light environments where you're very far from the nearest star. Yeah... I commented a few times in that Debate. I hope this discussion doesn't devolve into that. I'm not sure your last sentence is really acknowledging what I'm trying to explain though. You can see the unlit side of the moon and stars at night because a) the Earth is shining it's light on it and b) there's nothing else brighter in view. Having something dominantly brighter than anything else in view is the main point of what I'm trying to comprehend. It's been bugging me since my last comment. A lot of physical phenomena are intuitive to me because it's all stuff we experience every day. But this specifically is not an easy behavior to test at home.

Ha. Get your coffee in, Joe! C'mon! Can you point me to some references? I only remember one really in-depth discussion about it and after reading all of it I still have the opinion that when there's a lit celestial body on screen, there shouldn't be a visible sky box.

I still don't like seeing the stars and the silhouette of the unlit sides of celestial bodies when the lit side is on-screen. It just feels... incorrect.

Only six posts before you Also, please make sure you eat more variety than cup o' noodles for two months.

I second calling this new supposed race the Gerbals until we know otherwise.

I agree with this wholeheartedly. I’m not saying it should be humanity free. For what it’s worth, Joe, I’m almost always in agreement with things you’re saying around the forums. The crux of my complaint is if there’s going to be canonized alien life in the game, keep it microbial or something along those lines. I don’t want to see an ancient spacefaring civilization that somehow flung its home-world into the outer reaches of the solar system or whatever have you. Life is so incredibly rare. So. Incredibly. Rare. We have the Kerbals, which are “a representation of us” as the devs say. Us humans are all we have. It feels like (just my opinion here) that the Kerbals should be all that the Kerbals have.

I wish I could say the same. But, just because I’m not excited about it now before release doesn’t mean I won’t warm up to it later. How about you explain how I’m “gracelessly” wrong instead of just saying I am? I’ll even give you an example: I actually think you’re wrong about me being wrong. Why? Mathematically, that’s 4 Easter eggs out of 50. Or 8%. Only 8% of the Easter eggs that reference non-human endeavors or discoveries. So when I say “almost”, I think 92% is really quite in line with what I said. You should be careful when saying someone is gracelessly wrong. If you don’t do your homework beforehand, it may in fact turn out it’s you that’s gracelessly wrong. Graceless, because you’re telling someone they’re wrong when you haven’t even checked to see that they might actually be right.

I did say "almost" now didn't I, Bej?

If you want to go the "to be fair" route, you'd acknowledge that almost every easter egg in the game is just a nod to humanity's own spacefaring endeavors and discoveries. I talk a lot more about this in the other thread that I reference, so I don't expect you to know my exact thoughts. The gist of it is that I fall in the "keep the aliens lore out of KSP" camp and give me more of what Pthigrivi and I talk about in this thread.