Kerbart

Those are actually good points. I agree that after ten months of Sandbox, the For Science release is like water to a person lost in the desert. Tech tree pretty much demands unlocking everything, the game would be more interesting if the player is forced to make exclusive options (say Apollo/Soyuz/SpaceX crew capsule styles, even if they’re technically interchangeable). It’s still the “go place, click science, unlock unrelated tech” mechanism. Missions that unlock specific tech with specific tasks would have been nice. It's not super easy to fix that though. If your science instrument readings determine what you can unlock, you’ll still get the “go to crater X to unlock Y” mechanism. It’s just a bitless obvious but after unlocking half a dozen nodes it’ll be really obvious. Unless those readings are no predetermined. But then the game can become an exercise in frustration as non of your experiments is giving you that one reading you need to unlock docking ports.

If I get this right, you mean perpendicular to the build orientation? Because you can flip the build orientation between vertical and horizontal in the VAB (or switch buildings in KSP1), but you have enough experience to not mean that (but I do mention it on the off chance you do). I agree that we do miss parts that allow “building out” —hinges, etc, although even those in KSP1 didn’t work quite satisfactory because they were geared towards (robotic) motion and not really stiff enough to fold out to a static position allowing for large forces.

I was lazy! I’ll admit, I even have it on my personal keystrokes webpage, together with ⅗ and ⅞ but opted for a cheap typesetting trick instead. Shame! Shame! But I did use curly braces instead of straight quotes, so there’s that.

They're essential for building craft that resemble what we see in SF movies. I think there's a good chunk of players who enjoy that. In that sense they're relevant. From an efficiency perspective, yes, a total waste. Once we have robotic parts they'll be more relevant, as it's more practical to use them. But that'll likely be DLC and far over the horizon.

We’re all thrilled on how the game has progressed since EA. And while congratulations to the team are in place, that is a pretty low bar to pass. As a group on social media—and I suspect that extends to the Discord and Reddit communities—we’re biased about the game though. The Steam Charts tell a more sobering story. After nearly 2 weeks, KSP2 usage has dropped to the level of KSP1. The rate at which the stats drop seems the same—if not steeper—as when after EA release the game had a similar number of recorded players (early March). It's tempting to blame the holiday season for that, but with more time available player count tends to go up and the KSP1 stats confirm that. So, assuming the numbers don't lie and are indicative of the popularity of the game: A lot of players have downloaded KSP2. Either bought it or pulled it out of their mothballed archive. Interest in the game is still there, although only half of what it was at EA Over the course of 2 weeks, the player count dropped nearly 2/3 So what does it tell us? Probably nothing we didn't know already: The game is better. Much better. But it's far from good, Science mode is much more exciting than sandbox, but in the end it's basically the same as in KSP1 but with better visuals and a challenging tech tree; it gets old quickly There's still a collection of Old Bugs that is annoying. Yes, some of the Rage Quitters are gone, and many are happy about the unnatural stiff rockets, but orbital lines still disappear, engines still spontaneously throttle up, the VAB is still a bug fest, and so on As to be expected, new features have brought new bugs, especially around re-entry heating to a point where many consider playing without it A roadmap update will bring a boost in the stats. I'm sure T2 is delighted about that. The reason it took 10 months to get here is because of a lot of technical debt. There's still a lot left and not suprisingly it increased now. Given Intercept's promise to deliver the next update “much quicker,” I wonder where we end up with the stats. A roller coaster ride of new players joining and still casting the game aside, because objectively, it still leaves a lot to be desired from a stability point of view?

If only the game had some kind of mode where you are unconstrained in what you want to build. Anything! Like a kid in a sandbox!

Does the mission state they all need to go at once? Or is it just bringing ten Kerbals to the surface of Eve and returning them to Kerbin? Like 5 missions in pairs?

Yes that did the trick. Had some very interesting repercussions for staging, but I digress.

This was also at a velocity where heat should not be an issue. I'm not sure if the fairing is ignored or that it affects the heat flux of enclosed parts in some unexpected way.

Not just high altitude. i have an Okto2 consistently blowing up once it passes 10k on ascent due to overheating. Going maybe 500 m/s at that point. It's inside a 2.5m fairing, if that matters. Had to turn of heating to get it into orbit.

New players will mainly wonder if their boomsticks have the oomph it takes to go to space. I don't think they're throwing the game aside with a disgusted look an their face saying “can you imagine, this game STARTS with methaloc instead of kerosine?” For most, knowledge like that comes from playing the game, not the other way around.

And I don't think the tech tree should purely, only, and exclusively be tailored towards first time players. It's very important that the game doesn't provide extreme hurdles for first timers, but that doesn't mean that options should be not available for experienced players, who can have all kinds of reasons to pick them over liquid fuel engines. Even if some players don't see the point in it. "It's not needed because I personally don't want it" is generally a position that's hard to defend.

SRB's are still my goto if I need raw thrust. It's a lot easier to improve TWR with SRB's than with liquid fuel, especially if I don't need that thrust anymore when some of my LF has been burned up, and we're higher up with enough velocity to worry less about gravity losses. Of course, I could throttle down at that point, but I'd rather just run 100% throttle all the way with staging in between than managing thrust. Call me lazy. Designed that way, my launch vehicles also tend to be simpler.

I don't know about KSP2 but in KSP1 the wimpy HG-5 a;ready struggles as a relay around Minmus. I doubt it works all the way to Eve. Nertea mentioned that all antennas (antennae?) are relay antennas. Take a look at the range, if they're not rated for that distance they won't work.

Doesn't it just heat up the entire craft? Which could be also be interpreted as instant heat transfer.

Yes it does. I know because I haven't found a way to remove parts from symmetry in flight (if you adjust spring strength individually on landing legs you can straighten out a craft landed on a slope in KSP1, but I haven't found out how to do it in KSP2)

Don't be rude. If I have to assume anything it's because you're not sharing anything. Don't yell at people for "assuming" when they're trying to help but are working blind and you refuse to elaborate.

I agree that it looks a lot like we're here for advanced bug testing and not a lot else. @Nate Simpson perhaps do a video on how player feedback so far has influenced the direction of the game, outside bug fixing?

More mass, same cross section. That's not going to help you slowing down, It's going to help you maintain momentum From what I understand, engines are modeled as cones, I assume to reduce drag by "streamlining" the rear end of a rocket. Not only are you maintaining your cross section, you're reducing your friction coefficient That stuff mounted underneath the heat shield will heat up. And from what I understand of the new heat model, transfer its heat a lot quicker to the rest of the ship Engine + tank have substantial mass, so IF they heat up, the capsule is going to be a lousy heat sink for them. Meaning that once heats starts flowing from them to the capsule, it's not substantially lowering their temperature so that flow will continue A picture will at least give people a chance to see if they can reproduce the issue and elaborate on the problem. This not being your first rodeo might exacerbate the problem. This configuration might have worked in KSP1 but things have changed, so perhaps now it changed. Your design is likely solid, but the assumptions you based it on might be off.

On the left side we have people complaining that the tech tree is not realistic, the game should offer full access to all orbital data without mods, etc, etc "because of reality" On the right side we have people who want FTL drives and planets filled to the brim with (alien) artifacts, etc "because of gameplay" Neither side is right or wrong but all the devs can do in that regard is provide some balance. We have rovers on Mars and the Moon. We've been to the moon. It's a very desolate place and the current renditions of those planets in KSP are spot on. What exactly should we interact with, without robbing the game of its character of accuracy? I don't expect an answer to it, but that is why it's such a problem.

In KSP1 you have to activae tweakables in the settings In KSP2 it's in the part manager, ut you might have to twirl/unfold that option open to see the 6 axis options for RCS thrusters. When [;aced with symmetry you only have to edit one of them.

Would you mind posting a picture of saif craft during re-entry. On the off chance you're doing something to either design or orientation of the ship that the game doesn't like? At the very least we can learn from it.

I find it easier to skip docking mode altogether and just use IJKL for translation (HN fwd/bck). If you do need to fix your orientation it's easier to do without having to switch back and forth to docking mode. And as mentioned in nearly all the responses; turn off yaw/pitch/roll for the RCS thrusters. That should make it easier. Good luck!

Exactly, and this has been brought up in other threads as well. My fantasy is sadly limited here, but in fairness, so is that of the KSP dev team which makes my assessment hopefully remotely adequate: Those hundreds, thousands or perhaps even dozens of discoverables are hand made. Each and everyone is beautiful, unique and provides unique ways to interact with. Covering Duna alone will probably take 3 years of development. But what a sight to behold! The discoverables are procedural generated things you'd expect on a lifeless planet (we do want the game to be fairly realistic). That means... rocks. And rocks. And rocks. But also: more rocks. Some can be picked up. Others can be drilled. Maybe photographed. Not for Science points though, or you could complete the science team on the surface of any problem provided you're going to grind, and that's something For Science is not intended for. Instead of rocks, discoverables can be artifacts. Even if they're 30 km apart (20 miles in Freedom Units) there's going to be dozens of them even on Minmus. I doubt anyone wants that What can be done to make exploration mode more exciting? There's a missed chance here, sadly. And it's hiding in plain sight in the Monument missions: the monuments are located by radio signals Initially there's only a radio beacon direction finder. You'll have to land multiple probes to triangulate the monument In subsequent tiers, the beacon finder can be DME (Distance Measuring Equipment) enable. making it easier to triangulate Eventually, an orbital scanner can be used. Maybe two or three models each with an increased range—you won't find the location until you fly over it, within range. Bring on the polar orbit scanners! Multiple monuments can exist on a planet, some with signals so weak they cannot be detected from orbit. And at random locations so you can't just walk up to them based on what's in the Wiki because that's not where they are planted. Monuments can be weird alien stuff we have now. Or Unobtanium deposits. Water wells and other colony related stuff. If I can come up with this in 30 minutes, anyone can, to a point where I'm practically forced to believe this is what the devs have in mind after brooding on the game for multiple years. It's within the realm of the current infrastructure of the game. It leads to an exciting hunt. It requires exploring, doing instrument readings and doing something with those readings. What's not to like?

Well, just like prior to FS you could use a Lander Can as a reentry vehicle, but I never did, because you really shouldn't. At one point there might be a comm network. And I'll be happy that I set up my 2 satellite polar relay network. And it's a fun exercise.