DrCHIVES

I actually haven't noticed this one. I mostly select my targets after reaching orbit and going to build my maneuver node. I'd have to pay attention to that later when I get on.

I can completely agree with that. I do think that scrolling for zoom is a much more intuitive function and is why I would recommend leaving that as zoom in KSP2. Lol, see im adaptable . but i do think moving up and down would be much better suited under the modifier. As it stands now, it is physically impossible to move up or down your rocket without affecting your camera's orientation or zoom level as well.

I'll be honest, I spent more of my time in the VAB in KSP1 than the SPH. So I'd have to go back and refresh my memory on the controls in the SPH, but weren't they just flip floped? Meaning either way, translating up and down and in and out on your craft required no physical movement of the mouse. "Scroll Wheel" and "SHIFT + Scroll Wheel" still had respective controls. In KSP 2, "SHIFT + Scroll Wheel" doesn't have a function... I'd honestly care less which one they unified too. I think I could grasp a flip flop in control schemes much easier than a total change in them all together. To be quite honest this would probably be the best solution, as it wouldn't require any new "onboarded" players of KSP2 to require a relearning of control schemes and rather just the addition of one. So, I suggest zooming in and out would remain "Scroll Wheel" and moving up and down to be made "SHIFT + Scroll Wheel". I did not think of that. However, scrolling and or Shift scrolling would still be a heck of a lot faster than zooming out, middle mouse clicking another part, and then zooming back in to the zoom level you would otherwise just rather have stayed at in the first place to simply move up or down a bit. Like I said before, I realize the camera controls portion of my opinions regarding the UI are personal preference. But, I would think that bringing back a removed control scheme and making it perform either one of the two options (move up and down, or zoom in and out) would be beneficial. That too would free up the middle mouse button so that it could do what it did in the space plane hanger in KSP1 and would be a great tool in ksp2 and that is a free moving camera focal point translation tool. Then we wouldn't be locked to a focal point centered down the middle of our craft of fixed on a part that was middle mouse clicked.

Hey everyone, I finally managed to organize my thoughts and put together this post in response to the Dev Update on KSP2's User Interface. I had commented on the post with some elementary organized expressions that I later felt didn't accurately get my points across effectively. Also that post is now buried in the depths of the comments section and therefore are unlikely to get noticed. Being that the post acknowledged the Devs are actively monitoring user feedback on the User Interface in KSP2 I felt why not make a dedicated post on my thoughts. There was a Reddit post awhile back that took a poll regarding time spent in areas of KSP. The majority of responses confirmed my own experiences in that 60-80% of game-play or more was spent in the VAB. And that is certainly the case in KSP1 for me. However, I have been putting a lot more time in KSP2 now that For Science! is out. One thing I have Noticed, I find myself not enjoying the designing rockets aspect of the game as much in KSP2 compared to KSP1. One reason was quickly obvious from day 1 of Early Access release and that was the camera controls being different, but we will get to that later. The other issue took a while for me to figure out. It wasn't until I took the time to sit down and compare the two games side by side that it finally hit me. Why was it that I loved designing and building crafts in KSP1 so much and struggle to even enjoy it in KSP2? Something felt off and yet I just couldn't put my finger on it. I finally realized the issue for me was the workspace to UI elements ratio as well as workspace focal point and balance. If something has felt just off in KSP2's VAB for you, I think I know why. I am making this post for 2 reasons. 1: Because I haven't seen this mentioned in any other posts to my knowledge and I am curious to see if others agree with my observations / or after seeing this post others now suddenly realize this as being the issue that they too couldn't quite put their finger on if they had that feeling. and 2: In hopes that if others do agree with my observations/suggestions, the KSP2 Devs might notice this post and benefit from these insights to make the VAB UI experience the best it can be as we all want the best for KSP2. Thank you ahead of time for reading this rather lengthy post, and feel free to provide input as I am by no means any kind of expert in the field of User Interfaces lol. I am very much open to discussion! Lets Dissect the user interface for KSP1s UI: Photo below is a game capture. render resolution @ 1920x1080p and UI Scaling @ 100% . On the Left you have the part picker menu. take note of the fact that the menu starts at the edge of the screen. In other words there is no gap between the edge of the game window on the left and the beginning of the part picker menu. Also make a mental note of the width of the part picker menu. To the right of the part picker menu is a green lined boundary. This boundary dictates the usable workspace area. The Vertical Red line is the exact center divide of the game window. The two crosshair intersecting green lines are the focal point of the camera. Notice the location of the camera's focal point. Its not the center of the game window; rather it is more closely aligned to the center of the usable workspace area. Therefore, you have practically the same amount of workspace area to the left and right of your camera focal point. The UI Developers of KSP1 took note of the fact that the part picker menu unevenly removes potential real estate from the left side of the game window compared to the staging list on the right side of the game window. This is a concept that is used in pretty much all engineering cad programs. It provides a more pleasing and balanced workspace environment. The developers also minimized the surrounding UI elements such to reduce the overall deviation from the center divide of the game window. This too reduces the apparent imbalance between the left and right sides of the User Interface as the focal point is not too far away from the center of the game window. Now Lets Take a Look at KSP2's User Interface: Photo below is a game capture. Render Resolution @ 1920x1080p and UI Scaling @ 100% (although I do not believe UI scaling is implemented in the VAB of KSP2). The first thing you will notice in the VAB of KSP2 is that the part picker menu is much wider, therefore taking up more potential real estate from the usable workspace. On top of that the menu is not snapped to the edge of the game window as in KSP1 which also takes more room from the usable workspace. Not only that but its completely dead space. Its not used for anything and serves no benefit to the UI what so ever. You will also notice that the tool icons along the bottom of the game window are all tucked out of the way to the left and right in KSP1's User Interface. Some even existing in the bottom portion of the part picker menu as to maximize space utilization. The current location of these tool icons in KSP2 take yet even more real estate from the usable workspace area. This time from the bottom. Here too, these tool icons are not snapped to the border of the game window. All of this boils down to a significantly reduced usable workspace in KSP2 compared to KSP1. I shouldn't have to remind us that we are meant to be building on bigger scales in KSP2 in the hopefully near future. having a more claustrophobic workspace doesn't aid in providing a comfortable and balanced experience. Now taking a look at the workspace, another issue becomes apparent in the KSP2 VAB UI. The intersecting red crosshair lines represent 2 things: The center divide of the game window AND the focal point of the camera for your project. Notice how it is deviated to the left of the center divide of the usable workspace represented by the vertical green line. If we were to use the scroll wheel and zoom in on the workspace, the camera will zoom in on the rocket. Not the center of the workspace. This creates an unbalanced look and uncomfortable/awkward shift feeling when zooming in and out on your craft. It feels off, because it is. The deviation of the focal point from the center of the workspace is also much greater in KSP2 than in KSP1 due to the larger imbalance between the left and right elements of the UI. This also limits the usable workspace simply because the left side of your project has more limited real estate than the right when building as exampled below due to the part picker menu: Making the part picker menu less wide, snapping the UI elements the the borders of the game window, and aligning the camera focal point and project location to the center of the usable workspace area would make a massive difference in the user experience while in the VAB. I know nothing about coding, but being that these suggestions do not require any actual design changes, I would think that these implementations would be pretty straight forward and would have a profound ROI in terms of work hours spent. Camera Controls: Now I will be completely honest here this is going to be a personal preference, but I felt I would mention it anyway. while the camera isn't a tangible part of the UI, the inputs with the keyboard and mouse directly connect the user and how they interface with the game and therefore I would argue that the controls of the camera would be topic of discussion for the User Interface. We can all agree that everyone has a personal preference when it comes to the DPI settings of ones mouse. Me, I like 500. I play FPS games when not playing KSP. I like low sensitivities when playing FPS games as it helps with tracing recoil patterns. As such over the years I have come accustomed to moving my mouse around on my desk. as time went on, I found myself preferring lower DPI settings overall on the computer as it was just more natural to me. In KSP1 you would zoom in on your project by using "SHIFT+Scroll Wheel" and you would move the camera up and down along your project by simply using the scroll wheel. In KSP2, you zoom with scroll wheel and to move up and down along your project you have to click the scroll wheel and drag your mouse up or down respectively. Being that I am on a lower DPI this can mean multiple repetitions of this procedure to move up or down the entire length of certain crafts. Click scroll wheel, drag mouse up or down to edge of mouse pad, release scroll wheel, reset mouse on opposite mouse pad boundary, and repeat. This is made more difficult by the fact that while dragging your mouse with the scroll wheel clicked also allows left and right camera rotation around the craft. So if you do not drag your mouse perfectly up and down (which no one can do), translating up and down your craft will move your camera orientation around your craft as well. To me, it doesn't make sense why the Devs would change something from KSP1 to KSP2 for the simple reason of change for change's sake. As a player of KSP1 since 2012, it was immediately noticable in KSP2 the first time I went to build a rocket that the camera controls were different. This was very frustrating. as mentioned before, 60-80% of time is spent in the VAB. I've got over 2K hours in KSP1 spanning 12 years. all of a sudden, subconscious second nature actions don't have the expected results is just hard to break out of. At least maybe make it an option to use Legacy camera VAB controls? I propose keeping "Scroll Wheel" as zooming in and out of your rocket. And bringing back the modifier of "SHIFT + Scroll Wheel" from KSP1 and make it move the camera up and down along your craft. My solution suggestion for the camera controls would accomplish a couple of issues. For one, it would retain a control modifier that existed in KSP1 that has no function in KSP2, and allow returning players a more familiar feeling by providing better parity between the two games. Second, it only really adds a control scheme rather than just saying "bring back the old controls." This will mean that new players that have already "onboarded" into KSP2 will not have to completely relearn controls. Plus I do have to agree after some converstation with @The Aziz, seen in the comments below, that zooming is better suited for the base scroll wheel function as it is more intuitive and in line with practically any other design or cad application. And Lastly, it would free up the middle mouse wheel function. I propose that the middle mouse wheel should do what it did in the SPH of KSP1 and that was provide a free moving camera focal point translation tool. This is very beneficial for those building planes and spaceplanes as it allows more freedom in the placement of your camera while building large horizontal vehicles. Staging UI: In KSP1 when you needed to "Check Yo Stagin", the stage would move with your cursor while you dragged it. In doing so, you could see where it would go when you released the mouse. In KSP 2, the stage stays where it's at and a red dashed line appears in a position that your current cursor location would seemingly indicate a move to upon release of the mouse. however, its not very intuitive. look at the picture below: Unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to capture my cursor in a screenshot, however hopefully this illustration makes sense. In this screen shot, I have clicked stage 5 and intend to move it to below stage 4 and above stage 3. If I release the mouse anywhere within the green box, this action is successful. If I release the mouse within the orange box (which is within the intended location to move the stage to as apparent by the dashed red line and red pointed arrow) nothing happens. Stage 5 remains right where it is and no change in staging is made. This just doesn't make any sense to me. Further more, it is currently impossible to separate symmetry parts in the staging list to separate stages. This makes the standard method of doing asparagus staging very difficult. These are my unique grips with the current state of the KSP2 UI. There are many other areas of potential improvements like the font choice being terrible, and the 8 bit theme to icons, and calculator like dot matrix backgrounds behind texts and numbers, etc. But these are all things that others have also mentioned many times so I see no need in going into detail on them as the Dev team is hopefully already aware of these opportunities for improvement.

First, I'd love to say that I was blown away by the progress I saw with For Science! I left a pretty unfavorable review when ksp2 released into early access, and I do feel like that review is happily outdated and out of touch with the current state of ksp2 in many areas. But not all. There are still some areas that I feel are holding me back from truly losing my life to the game (which I very much wish to do lol). Font style consistency/choices: You have dotted text styles, pixelated text styles, and then normal text styles. The dotted and pixelated ones are both difficult to read and annoying to look at. If I didn't have a 4k screen I wouldn't bother with the game as I don't understand how some people could read that on a 1080 Or lower resolution screen. The ui elements also sport this 8 bit pixel theme that make deciphering what these icons even are. Like what is the escape menu icon supposed to be, a hamburger??? And man, by the way your UI guys love dots!!! Dots around the navball that get denser to fade the navball around the edges. Dots around every flight ui element, Dots in the VAB ui icons, Dots dividing the mission control texts, Dots, dots, dots, dots, dots!!!! Lol let's calm down on the dots, it's too much. camera controls: I'm not happy at all with any of the camera controls either in-flight, or in the vab. Can't seem to find a camera view option in-flight that feel right. But most importantly is the VAB. There is massive room for improvement here. I used to enjoy the time I spent in the VAB in ksp1. Ksp2, I find myself quickly slapping things together to get to the flight as I enjoy that better. KSP2 isn't the only game I play. I also play FPS and survival games. I therefore I like using a low DPI on my mouse (500). It is quite annoying that in a game where you build rockets that are more or less pretty vertical, i.e. up and down, you have to click your middle mouse wheel, drag your mouse up or down, release mouse wheel, reset mouse to top or bottom of mouse pad, and repeat to move up and down while building your rocket. It just makes no sense! What was wrong with scroll wheel moving you up and down and shift + scroll wheel to zoom in and out. It was a perfectly fine and optimal camera control system. You right click to change camera orientation around a fixed point of focus and you click middle mouse wheel and drag to change that point of focus. I get so frustrated dealing with the camera controls in the VAB that I lose all the fun in building vessels. Perhaps it's because I'm used to ksp1, but this is just something that I don't feel needed to be changed other than change for changes sake. I certainly don't find it more efficient. The part selection menu is now much larger than ksp1 with much larger icons. I feel this is going to be more of a hassle when the full list of parts are on the table. Also, even though the menu occupies more screen space, the center of the camera focus on the vessel is still located at the center of your screen. This means there is less real estate on the left side of your workspace than the right based off the camera focal point. Either make the part picker menu smaller to lessen this dramatic effect, or shift the focal point of the camera to the center of the usable workspace not the center of the screen. Fairings: another change for change sake perhaps? Drawing farings was 10x faster and easier in ksp1 than it is with the new drag the arrows and accept system now. Parts manager: I don't hate it, it's nice to be able to select items on a craft when right clicking can be difficult, like when doing excessive part clipping. In that aspect I find this system to be better than ksp1's right click individualized part menu system. But, if I have the parts manager open and I right click a part, it should navigate me to that part in the manager. I shouldn't have to hunt for a specific part in the long parts list when it's an easily right-clickable part. Performance: While this update did take a huge step in a better direction, I do feel I need to say that we have a long way to go. I am running a 13900k and a 4090 with 32gigs of ram. In most situations I will say I am getting above 60fps. But I can't say that we have even reached my modded ksp1 performance. And in the future we are expecting to be building giant interstellar vessels, massive orbital and surface colonies and having these things coexist in the same physics loading ranges and across multiple planetary and star systems. In ksp2 I'm having to keep my tracking station relatively clear in my save file to keep my frame rates up. It seems even if the vessel isn't in physics range, just simply existing out there takes up a bit of resources and the more active vessels in your solar system the less performance your getting. We will need to continue to see massive improvements if this game is ever to reach the level of scope this game was pitched on. I'm not sure I would still recommend this game for people with computer specs on the lower end of the minimum specs requirements. I'm not going to mention any bugs or graphics issues as I feel like you guys are already aware and are making diligent efforts to improve those areas. I just wanted to point out these specific QOL issues I've experienced as I feel if no one talks about them, then no one knows that they need to be addressed. Perhaps I'm the only one with these views, and that's fine, but I find it hard to believe people that have spent over 2k hours on ksp1,like for example even Nate Simpson, didn't sit down at the computer the first time to build a rocket in ksp2 and find themselves frustrated that simple things like camera controls that were used for hours on end for 10 plus years are suddenly totally different and not even as far as I'm aware effectively better. But in conclusion I do have to say I am now enjoying ksp2! Please keep up the good work!!!

I'll be honest, I haven't touched this game since the first patch after release. With a total of 11 hours played (most of which spent fapping about with the new awkward VAB controls) I was kicking myself for not launching outside of steam so that it didnt count my hours and I could get a refund. I was not expecting this update until at least after its release anniversary. So, initially I was surprised and somewhat impressed by this news. However, I will say that I had to remind myself that this is private division and take 2 that we are dealing with here. The same publisher that forced them to release an early access that was not even in the same universe as the word "ready". Kinda a bit convenient that this update comes right in time for Christmas spending. I'd be willing to bet that this update will not be delayed simply because it's a hard internal date from their employer. So I somewhat expect the update to have the same level of unreadyness as the first release. But, some praise is in order. At least we will have something to do in the game that can hopefully span the time between further updates. Hopefully as we start to slender the bug report list, the team can push out content updates increasingly quicker in the future with a stable base to build upon. Update aside I could honestly care less about the content progression when the things that frustrate me the most is the lack of QOL parity between the games. A sequal that didnt even think to include per stage delta V planning or delta V based on conditions/location? Dont want to be a buzzkill but I'll remain uninterested until proven otherwise. We were sold for 3 years on the same brief info and Screenshot drop tactics that gave us the first release... I will not fall for it again. Just..... Impress me

So, we get an announcement regarding the announcement last week that there would be an announcement for the patch release date this week and the announcement announced was that there is no date more specific than June, but to stay tuned for an announcement, where we will announce the release date mere days before the actual day. In the mean time look at these cool grid fins that already exist in a mod with no release date that will somehow take 10x the development time than some lone coder messing around in his free time. I just don't even know what to say anymore at this point. I have uninstalled KSP2 and unfollowed Private Division and Intercept Games' on all social mediums. Im tired of these "announcements" It just frustrates me too much, and I hate being a negative person. I'll check back in this time next year, perhaps we will have science mode by then and a majority of the game breaking bugs squashed.

It's a known bug. The devs had mentioned that it is planned for there to be a trajectory arc that will connect the entrance and exit marker for the sphere of influence. But it's not working as of right now. They have also been made aware of the issue with orbital info not staying up while adjusting your maneuvers. It will hopefully get fixed soon Edit: apparently there is a mod that fixes the latter issue you can find in the forum section for ksp2 mods.

I 100% agree... I really do with that everyone who wants to play ksp2 would be able to. Its an amazing franchise that for many has had a profound life affect. However, I do not want the game to be held back at the same time simply because the majority market clientele cant make the specs. We have spent a little over 3 years critiquing and scrutinizing this game from every possible angle putting a huge demand on it with regards to expectations. We wanted massive surface and orbital colonies, Colossal interplanetary and interstellar vessels, hyper realistic clouds, beautiful planets and surface textures and terrain scatter, weather, colony management, multiplayer, footprints and environmental impacts and reactions, life support, the list goes on... Like, I'm sorry your Dell Latitude from 2012 with integrated CPU graphics cant run it. You put all of the similar respective mods in ksp1 at max settings at 1440p and it runs like absolute dog water on even the best machines. almost all the youtube videos of these grand missions in real solar system are dramatically sped up so that people can even bear to watch it. What did people really expect for ksp2?

I would certainly love this to be the case! Your argument makes sense.

I was literally thinking the same exact thing. Built my first pc back in alpha 9 days pecifically for that game. Now I don't even bother to keep up with any news on it... what are they on, like alpha 30 at this point? That game will never be finished! Back to the OP, I would hope that small patch updates and bug fixes will drop regularly right after early access launch. I suspect content updates, like the chapters of their roadmap, will be 6 months apart give or take.

I'll be on the game the moment of launch to test its maximum capabilities. I recently splurged and decided to build a practically blank check rig. Running Ryzen's new 7950x, 32gigs of the fastest speed and latency ram my motherboard and cpu support, RTX 4090, and a Samsung 980 pro m.2. I will be streaming KSP2 the minute it releases for approx 8 hours a day for 3 days straight on my twitch channel. If anyone is on the fence, or even just wants to see how ksp2 runs at max settings on a "spared no expense" machine, please stop by on the big day! twitch.tv/drchives53

I totally understand what you are saying because this is how we have always seen images of celestial bodies from space. But that's simply a product of our familiarity. The reason you don't see stars in the background, and silhouettes of the body on photos is simply a result of camera limitations. Earth gives off so much reflected light that in order to see any detail in a photo, the cameras were adjusted for super fast shutter speeds and low exposures. Astronauts have said that, in person, the sights and experience is very different from the detail you see in photos. If I'm not mistaken Scott Manley did a video on this very topic a while back. I can't say that I belive the lighting (specifically the ambient lighting) is without need for tuning, but I do know that in person we would be able to see the silhouette of the earth and the stars behind it.

Pretty sure I saw an update to ksp1 the other day which addressed an overhaul to the launcher in preparation for exactly this.

I stand corrected you get so used to things that you forget that they havent always been there since 1.0... my point still being that I do not believe that the early access period for ksp2 will be considerably long given what we've been shown that already exists in engine.