PopinFRESH

I believe prototyping and pre-production started in late 2017 based on the context of when Take Two acquired the rights, and discussions and/or videos with Nate about when he was told about it at Uber Entertainment/StarTheory (which would also seem to coincide with his promotion to Creative Director at Uber Entertainment). Also, @OP nice video Looking forward to reverting to the VAB in early 2023

I'm sure it is if you're the parents (a.k.a. the developers) The friends and family on the other hand... not so interested in every kick or jostling about. You can still be hyped and have a rational understanding of time and work so as to not be frustrated. It's only when people let their hype override their capacity for reason that they get frustrated and/or bitter/angry/mad.

I think you might have misunderstood my point. I'm not suggesting that colony building or resource management will be introduced before the spaceflight mechanics. I'm saying I think it's reasonable that they will introduce the mechanics of colony building and resource management as tutorials in building out the KSC. In other words, once you get to a point in the missions where you've landed on the Mun the next missions will be the tutorial by upgrading the KSC and then launching a colony lander to the Mun to establish a base on the Mun. What I'm suggesting is that the building and upgrading the KSC on Kerbal (I'd expect) will use the same game mechanic systems as the colony building; I'm not saying it will be the first thing you are thrust into.

I think this is what was being pointed out. Comparing the start of a calendar year to an end of a fiscal year, rather than comparing the start of a calendar year to the start of a fiscal year; or comparing the end of a calendar year to the end of a fiscal year. While some may consider it pedantic, I think @The Aziz was simply trying to add clarity to a topic that is obviously confusing for some people; hence the purpose of the OP. I don't personally think it is being pedantic when the purpose of the OP is trying to offer clarity to a topic of confusion; and I certainly wouldn't call @The Aziz first post pretentious or condescending. That is to say Take Two's Fiscal Year is "shifted forward" by 9 months such that the start of the fiscal year is 9 months earlier than the start of the corresponding calendar year. Fiscal Year 2023: Starts April 1 2022 - Ends March 31 2023 Calendar 2023: Starts January 1 2023 - Ends December 31 2023 Fiscal Year 2024: Starts April 1 2023 - Ends March 31 2024 While the quarterly earnings presentation shows console release planned for Fiscal 2024, the announcement thread would seem to read as being stated in the calendar year As such I'd read this as PC launch should be expected sometime between January 1 2023 - March 31 2023; console version should be expected sometime between April 1 2023 - December 31 2023.

All aboard the choo! thread. I don't think the train will leave the station in September, however, given the prior cadence of the feature videos they've been posted about every 5 months so I do think we will see a feature video on either colonies or multiplayer in September. Then another 5 months after that in February we will probably see a final feature video on whichever one they don't cover in episode 6... and THAT is when the HYPE TRAIN™ will pull away from the station. On this topic I'd echo Gargamel. They haven't even finished the game and still have yet to show or discuss the implementations of all of the major pillars that have been announced. Playing the game, that is what is in store for after release. Building a deathtrap glorious scientific vessel for Jeb to pilot to the Mun and beyond!

I feel like @Vl3d is just describing Star Citizen with the addition of orbital mechanics and ship building. Go watch the CitizenCon videos, specifically the "state of persistence" and the "building a dynamic universe" that shows off the Quantum simulation system. You'll see a lot of similarities at a high level in regards to what the OP is suggesting. Given that has taken more than 10 years with a budget of over $450 million thus far and still isn't complete, and it isn't simulating realistic-ish orbital mechanics, I'd argue that this dream is a pipe-dream. Especially given what they've said about how they've re-built the simulation engine at the scale of multi-lightyears with sub-millimeter precision specifically in order to enable extremely long burns during long physics warp. I tend to agree with @Master39 and others regarding making KSP2 into an MMO. Definitely not interested in that in the slightest. I am however interested in being able to hop into a session with a couple of friends and work on designing different craft together, or a few of us working on different portions of a larger goal.

I don't believe they were intending "posting missions with a price tag" to mean "with actual currency", but rather like the current career mode missions have initial outlays and rewards for successfully completing them. I believe they are advocating to make that a type of system that is player-to-player. In my opinion this introduces a significantly different game than what the spirit of KSP is. It would be similar to making Out of the Park Baseball as a sequel to MLB The Show; that is to say it would turn the game into a management sim versus a space sim. I do also agree that all of that requires some form of global or shared persistence which means they would need to maintain infrastructure for it which means on-going operational costs. I'm less concerned about the slippery slope argument toward micro transactions, however, I do understand the notion of hesitation there. With that type of system already in place it does seem to be more probable that Take Two could force their hand, even though they've clearly stated there will not be micro transactions, rather than doing something else like continued development of new DLC which would have a higher cost to deliver than "buy fake currency pack". I don't expect any type of trading be it via a marketplace or ad hoc. Any type of trading means there is some type of shared persistence among players, and secondly I don't think their goal is to add in that depth of resource management. I believe this will likely become more clear once they do a feature video to show off and talk about how colonies will work in a bit more depth. Hopefully we will get such a video around September and will have a better idea about how resources will work in that context which should help infer how resources might work more broadly, thus how that may or mayn't tie into multiplayer.

Thanks for the clarification. I don't foresee them doing any MMO-like elements such as that regardless of the developers prior work. I'm expecting something closer to Satisfactory/Astroneer/etc. type of peer-to-peer co-op where I can load up my save and you can join a co-op session to work together on doing things. I am definitely not expecting any global persistence or even a shared persistence. If that was the intended scope of multiplayer I don't think they would have changed the multiplayer type on the Steam store page to `Online Co-op`. Interesting ideas though.

What I mean by Co-op is what that generally stands for, cooperative play; e.g. not competitive play. As I noted in my previous reply there are some glimpses they've shown of interfaces which seem fairly logical they are designed in a way to be able to be co-op. Based on how they've redesigned the VAB from what we've seen of it, that seems like it would function with multiple people snapping parts onto a craft in a co-op session such as two people working on two different subassemblies at the same time. Based on Nates previous interview with Scott Manley at their early glimpse in 2019 they originally described "4 launch pads" and "two runways" at the new KSC which would sound like accounting for different players to take control of different craft (rather than multiple players crewing the same craft). Those are the two main aspects of co-op that I think are reasonable in my opinion. Cooperatively building and designing craft (akin to "collaborative editing" with multiple people editing the same document simultaneously) and multiple players simultaneously launching different missions to accomplish cooperative goals. If they go down to the nitty gritty of multiple players controlling the same vehicle as @Vl3d was suggesting I'd consider that a bonus.

Why would it need to be credited if the video and audio was produced in-house? The music very well could just have been made for the video rather than for the game soundtrack, however, I'm not seeing how it lacking director, producer, etc. credits would add doubt for you? If anything that should indicate it was done in-house and is more likely to be part of the games soundtrack.

I really don't understand why people seem to have such certainty that multiplayer co-op is causing problems and is the reason for any of the delays. Designing for a single player only experience versus a co-op capable experience is significantly different. People still seem to think multiplayer is some sort of bolt-on mechanic afterthought that is now causing problems because things were designed for a single player experience. This isn't true and multiplayer, along with modding, have been core design considerations since they originally announced KSP2 and the original KSP2 Steam page was published. You don't do more than two years of design work on core systems and then start thinking about how multiplayer might work within those systems. If you set out to make a single player and/or multiplayer experience you'll design those core systems with those design considerations from the start. In regards to the scope or "type" of multiplayer, I think the changes to the Steam store page should point to what the expectation is. When it originally was published it was listed as "Multi-player". It was later changed to the more specific "Online Co-op". As such I don't expect there will be competitive elements to the multiplayer, such as the space race example. However, given they are also designing with the modding community in mind this type of space race multiplayer will likely be able to be done by the modding community. This is an example of what I'm talking about above. In the videos where they've briefly shown building in the VAB one of the things that was shown is how you can simultaneously work on different subassemblies in the VAB rather than everything having to be joined to the "root" object like in KSP. This should be an obvious example of how they've been designing systems with co-op in mind. This example works equally well if I'm solo building some communication satellite subassemblies along with a rocket to put them into orbit, or if I'm doing the same thing with a friend. I also think the other aspects you're talking about (e.g. taking on different roles) "during a mission" will make sense for either solo or co-op play. I'm not sure exactly what you're meaning by a subassemblies marketplace, however, I think you're suggesting like players publishing different craft to an online repository that other players can download the craft and load it in their VAB (e.g. a passive / asynchronous multiplayer). It seemed like you could individually save the different subassemblies which is sort of a blueprint so this seems feasible to be able to publish your saved craft to somewhere like with Steam Workshop or similar. Regardless of this type of online repository of craft designs, I definitely expect that players will be able to bring their own saved designs into a co-op session. As such this would essentially mean one could design various subassemblies solo, save them, and then join into a co-op session with a friend and they would each be able to load in their various subassemblies to adjoin them to a launch vehicle they are building together.

I've had this same question. Personally, I hope not, but who knows. I would expect, and hope, so. I'm not sure why you would want one planet to be handled differently than any other planet you colonize. I'd think of it like Kerbin will be the first planet we colonize by building out the KSC(s) and supporting facilities. I suspect that you will get the intro tutorial portions of how colony building works by building your KSC on Kerbin which will likely include setting up the fuel/resource systems. I don't expect "resource collection" to be at the depth of something like Satisfactory, etc.. I think they will balance the level of depth for this at something along the lines of 1) Planet has X, Y, Z, resource types. 2) Maybe have some simplistic gradient of resource concentrations that will provide more or less resource flow depending on concentration. 3) Is there a mining/refinery unit to gather resource X, Y, or Z.

And you are consciously deciding to suggest bad stuff, this is why I call it "blind hate", you're literally figuratively closing your eyes and typing something negative. Tell this to Sean Murray. I'd argue he single handedly dismantles this notion and what seems to be your expectations, both before and after the launch of No Man's Sky.

I have a ticket for two and would like to board the train please

That is also a myth, especially when forecasting out more than a year in the future on a large and/or complex project. There are a plethora of valid reasons for various portions of the forecasting to exceed the anticipated duration (including factoring in some buffer) which are neither a problem with the process or the project management. Several of these have already been discussed including expanding scope, unforeseen external events, etc.

You keep saying this like it was announced with a specific release date, specifically like it was announced to launch in January 2020. The only thing I've seen from the original announcement was "Lithobraking Near You in 2020". Am I missing something where they announced a more specific date than this? If I haven't missed the announcement of a specific January 2020 date, given it was announced in August 2019 for launch in 2020 that would be anywhere from 5 - 17 months for their originally expected launch window. I think you are ascribing a January 2020 date to imply some fictitious level of progress or state of the game in order to strawman "they knew they needed 3 years instead of 5 months to release" and that their initial expected release date couldn't have possibly been impacted by covid. The reality is in August 2019 they gave themselves a release window of up to 17 months when the game was announced In May 2020 after moving studios and being forced to adapt to remote work due to lockdowns they announced a new target of "Fall 2021", again a window of about 17 months. In November 2020, just 6 months later, they announced the delay to a release window of 2022. That sequence of events seems to me like they responded fairly quickly to the studio changes and the covid lockdowns and punted what they thought would be a reasonable amount of time. After 6 months of experiencing the impact of being in lockdown they reassessed their estimated timeline based on their throughput over the prior 6 months and decided to reforecast it to 2022. To me this sounds like a responsible developer. I'd be far more skeptical if those circumstances were different, or if they waited until the very end of 2020 to push it back to 2021 and then waited until the very end of 2021 to push it back to 2022, and then waited until the very end of 2022 to push it back to 2023.

Thanks @The Aziz

I think most people agree with that sentiment, but the ones who don't are just way more vocal. Such is the way of the world, I guess.... I'd concur with @TheOrbitalMechanic, I don't think you are in the minority with that opinion.

But that isn't true. It was announced in August 2019 for a release in 2020, as shown in the announcement trailer. Shortly after that announcement is when Take Two was trying to acquire Star Theory and subsequently established Intercept Games. That obviously would have been very disruptive to production and alongside that disruption they were forced into lockdown at the end of March 2020. So yeah, announcing a 2020 release and then having to adapt to losing half the staff, onboarding new staff to the project, and doing so with an abrupt shift to remote work I'd say Covid 19 had an impact on the first delay to Q3 2021.

I've tried to search for this on the forum but haven't been able to find if there is a consolidate thread about it. If anyone can point me in the right direction I'd appreciate it.

Just as your first point is valid, your second point is invalid. "time in the oven does not translate to a better result, or even the originally promised result" - valid, a delay does not necessarily mean the end result will be an improved experience or finished product. "Delays don't signify the developer "wanting to do a better job", they signify the developer doing a bad job, where they haven't been able to meet goals inside deadlines." - Invalid, a delay does not necessarily mean the end result will be a worse experience or an unfinished product. While I don't know how Intercept Games handles their workflows, I would be willing to bet that like most modern software development they use an Agile development process as opposed to a traditional waterfall approach. Deadlines are nearly the antithesis of an agile workflow, however, because the general public and investors/business managers don't tend to think like developers they still have to guesstimate milestones and timelines for the rest of us. Scrum is about an iterative loop to help elevate your constraints (Theory of Constraints and Agile is a rabbit hole of interesting topics worth delving into if project management is the type of thing that interests you). Like I've said elsewhere, the last delay they forecasted out a 25 month timeline based on a plethora of speculative estimates of all the various systems and features intended to be included at launch. They've had about 18 months of work to help them narrow that forecast window based on their throughput over that 18 months. Obviously there is the potential for scope creep and feature creep as an iterative process often does result in novel ideas that spring up during that process. This is the constant challenge for the PM trying to balance those constraints. So in summary, a delay could point toward either outcome. If you view it as a greater potential for one or the other I think tends to be if you are more of a "glass half empty" or "glass half full" type of person.

@Zozaf Kerman, from this. Not sure if it’s the most… reliable source. Are you doubting the scientific validity of the ouija board or the crystal ball? I got +8 science when I ran the experiment so it seems reliable to me... Although, it just dawned on me that it might be showing something from a future where they write the date as Year, Month, Day so 315 could mean "May of 2031" Buckle up its going to be a ride!

Nope, the ouija board inside the crystal ball clearly pointed to 315

Yeah, Q4 FY2023 for T2 is Q1 calendar 2023 (January - March 2023), which is what I'd also label as "early 2023". At this point what I'd expect to happen based on their prior cadence of feature videos would be an Episode 6 around September (e.g. about 5 months from April's episode 5) that goes over how they are approaching either colonies or multiplayer. Then another 5 months after that around February 2023 would be an episode 7 covering whichever of those two they didn't discuss in episode 6. Then shortly after that in February a short (similar to the cinematic trailer) gameplay launch trailer, which doesn't show too much of the progression, that announces the actual launch date in March. I looked into a crystal ball a few minutes ago which showed me a glimpse of a ouija board that pointed me to the number 315... So officially it looks like the launch date is March 15th 2023.

Considering it is May and they are announcing this rather than waiting until the 11th hour on December 31st 2022 to make the announcement I don't think "playing with peoples feelings" really holds water. I'd be much more disappointed if they remained silent all year and then delayed it last minute.