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cfds

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Posts posted by cfds

  1. 2 hours ago, Lisias said:

    I find hard to believe that people really want to dumb down the game to the point in which a 7.5M wide, 220M tall rocket being able to even take off is… "realistic".

    Where does KSP take aspect ratio into account? Flexing is just a function of number of joins, not the length of the parts.

  2. The real problem with this discussion is that the devs should have had it five years ago. Even looking from the outside, it was clear that the main problem with KSP 1 development was the constant uphill battle against Unity physics. It was a mess of band aids, cludges, and hacks, and tended to break in surprising (and difficult to test) ways. That they still decided to go with it shows that they either did not believe that they could find a better solution or that they actualy believed the idea that KSP is a lolplosion simulator first and foremost. Neither is good news for the more serious players.  Unfortunately, there are probably more than enough people perfectly happy to spend 50€ to spend a few hour crashing stuff around the space center to validate this approach...

  3. The problem with visible bending is that it is not just a visual effect that gives the user feedback: It has knock-on effects on the physics computation, leads to offset thrust and incorrect heading/bearing values, especially if the satellite inside the fairing is the "control point" for SAS. The current single joint simulation has nothing to do with how materials behave in real life, and the "feedback" the user gets is not helpful: The problem is never that the rocket is "unrealistically skinny", the problem is that the rocket has too many joints.

    The only way bendy rockets would be sensible is if the underlying physics simulation were a lot more complex: At least joints between parts would have to be some form of triangle lattice, ideally the parts themselves as well. KSP 1 did not do this because they simply did not have the capacities and we (begrudgingly) accepted it because of "small team of amateurs". That excuse does not fly anymore when a professional studio is doing the development.

  4. 59 minutes ago, Pthigrivi said:

    This is interesting; the positioning optics for the Saturn V accounted for 1/3 of a meter of flex just from wind on the pad: 

    So a relative deflection of 0.3% to 0.4% (depending on the height of the sensor on the rocket and assuming no flex in the launch platform or the clamps)? Also known as "not visible to the naked eye"? Zero flex may not be entirely correct, but is far more correct than visible flex. Which, again, is not an intentional feature but a limitation of the engine.

  5. The wobbling of rockets is a direct consequence of the use of the Unity chained rigid body system, that Squad introduced because they did not know better and Intercept kept because they prioritize visuals over substance. There is no intend to "teach" or "punish" players for unrealistic designs (otherwise a stack of four 0.5m tanks wold have the same wobble as one 2m tank), there is just an engine that is not suited more than a very basic single stack rocket. Unfortunately, there is far more money to make from a horde of "casuals", who spend two hours crashing Kerbals into the space center, than from a handful of "core player", who want to have a robust game that allows them to explore the system to their heart's content...

  6. I think there is litte disagreement that KSP 1 is a janky mess that somehow (mostly due to volunteers who cludged their fixes onto this mess and maintained it tthough update after update) became a success regardless. We kind of accept the problems with Unity PhysX because we realize that a team of amateurs had basically no other option to get the game of the ground. We accepted the bad and slightly less bad aerodynamic models, because there was FAR to fix it.  The "space program" part of "Kerbal Space Program" was only reluctantly tagged on on not very well thought out, but mods kind of helped there as well. The art style was all over the place, but again mods fixed that. We were annoyed when every update brought a whole new set of bugs (and broke all our mods), but after two or four rather quick hot fixes there was an improvement over the previous version.

    The weird thing is that the devlopers of KSP 2 either believed that the jank is part of the charm (some remarks regarding the wobblyness of rockets point that way) or are simply not able to provide a better product. The graphics are way better, but that is the thing that mods fix the most easily. They started with the slighty less bad aerodynamic model, but obviously it is just as easily broken by updating things as the one of KSP 1. They use the same chained rigid body system that KSP 1 already showed to be a liability. Orbital stability and SoI changes seems to be actually worse than KSP 1 ever was. We have yet to see if the "space program" part will be implemented in a better way.

    It just looks like after multiple years of development with much more than "Indie" budget they just have the same rotten foundation as KSP 1 has, but with nicer graphics.

  7. If I got a dime every time

    - a version of KSP changes its prize to $40

    - a version of KSP is released with aerodynamic problems on the basic capsule that show that nobody bothered to test flying a basic rocket to orbit and back

     

    I  would have $0.20, which is not a lot, but it is strange that it happended twice...

  8. 15 hours ago, adsii1970 said:

    Hey, folks - I hate to have to put on my moderator hat, but kinda have to for just a moment. Long before I was a moderator, I, too was a regular forum player back when KSP (the original) was in 0.22. And believe me, there were tons of bugs, a lot like we are experiencing now in KSP2. Some of the bugs were downright funny and others were infuriating, often crashing the game to the desktop and corrupting the saved game file. Ah, yeah, those were the days.

    KSP2 is no different. We all knew there would be bugs with KSP2 being in EA.

    So KSP2 is sold for $20 and developed by a small team of enthusiastic but inexperienced developers without the backing of a publisher?

  9. 13 hours ago, Klapaucius said:

    When Subnatautica Below Zero came out in early access, it was buggy, it had no voice over (just text) and about 40 minutes of playtime.  So there is very much precedent for this.

    But "missing content" is absolutely ok for early access. Content can be added easily, fixing a broken foundation is way harder.

  10. 23 hours ago, dr.phees said:

    Isn't it weird that Kerbals have very cool animations now, but the actual physics engine is still in its beginnings?

    It is not weird if you consider two points:

    * People who can create an engine that acts as a solid foundation for future development are more expensive than 3D modelers and animators

    * Engines that act as a solid foundation for future development do make far less flashy promo materials than 3D models or animations

    So if you want to create a good game, you start with the solid foundation and add the flashy parts later. Otherwise, you create a flashy game, sell it to the hyped masses,  and hope that the problems of a wobbly foundations magically vanish (or are excused by the aforementioned masses high on copium).

  11. 40 minutes ago, Wheehaw Kerman said:

    Buy the game tomorrow.  Vote with your wallet, it’ll help fund development and demonstrate to Intercept’s corporate masters that there’s a market for 1.0.  Fifty bucks is nothing, and your early investment will get you a better game for zero dollars more down the road.

    Paying them now means telling Take2 that you are fine with paying $50 for the current state of the game, nothing more, nothing less. And the "I will buy this game no matter what"-attitude is why game publishers feel justified to drop tech demos on the market for at least AA prizing...

  12. 44 minutes ago, CastleCustodian said:

    The problem is that the simulation is the opposite of reality. In the real world long solid objects flex. While joints break when stressed too much. In kerbal the simulation is doing the opposite. joints flex and if they flex too much the straight section goes poof. Is it possible to make the model closer to reality without killing computers?

    Since there were bridge building games in the late 90s that simulated exactly this and worked fine on the computers of their time: Yes.
    But if your only effort is to tweak parameters provided by the Unity implementation of a chained rigid body like some hobbyist you will probably not get there.

  13. 1 hour ago, Rocket Farmer said:

    Yahtzee dice.  Good comparison.  I googled and a set costs $8.  Given on KSP I spent $0.02/ hour I hope you can get 400 play hours out of those dice to match KSP.

    Well, considering that my family still uses the same set of dice for 30 odd years: Probably.

    1 hour ago, Rocket Farmer said:

    ”Absurd price?”  Did you miss the “entire Kerbal system”, “new parts” etc?  Even if you are good that’s still a couple of hundred hours to explore everything.    So $0.25/hour ($50/200 hours) is an “absurd price.”  That doesn’t count all the extras and mods that will end up in the game.

    It is a factor of 1150% on top of your quoted $0.02/hour, so it looks like it. And no, I do not count things that do not exist yet.

    1 hour ago, Rocket Farmer said:

    “No promise to deliver more?”  Except for the roadmap promising to deliver more and giving the order it is coming in?  From the same guys that promised a release date and will seemingly hit it?

    Basically you want a game that costs 10s if millions to develop and yet for youv”meh $50, it’s not worth more than $45.”  Lol.  

    $50 buy you exactly the tech demo that was shown, which has less features than a game that costs $10 on steam often enough to consider that its retail price. The  other $40 buy you a lottery ticket for further development. Perhaps the roadmap will be finished some day and the game will be worth the $50.  But perhaps Take Two decides after the first update that already have the money of the "Shut up and take my money" crowd and it is too expensive to try to develop enough to convince other people to buy.

    And wasn't the original release data some time in 2020? And this is early access, not a release...

  14. 11 hours ago, Bej Kerman said:

    Why would they charge £20 more than KSP 1's £30 for a game whose developers have not given up at the bottom of the hill, whose developers are going to spend the next few years doing more than what KSP 1's devs did - muck around trying and failing to redo the asset art styles :/

    I don't know, probably to do with the fact the devs know what they're doing and aren't, for example, going to push a career mode out, see it fail beyond a few hardcore players, and completely give up on making it make sense.

    Unfortunately, this remains to be seen. And the fact that rockets noodle about like in KSP without KJR (or autostruts) does not bode well.

  15. 4 hours ago, Rocket Farmer said:

    Lol.  Except you miss the part where they built the entire sandbox without which your “effort at entertainment” wouldn’t be possible.

    You spend $10/hour to go to a movie.  By comparison if you get at least 5 hours out of a new Kerbal sandbox then you get at least that much utility.

    In fact it’s almost impossible that you could possibly find cheaper entertainment.  We both know with the existing sandbox you can easily spend 100-200 hours plus with all the mods that will be released you could stay entertained for a very long time.  All for $50 plus their promise to deliver more.

    It boggles the mind at how cheap people get.

    I knew the inane "But a movie costs $10/hour" - "argument" would appear sooner rather than later. In a movie, all you have to do is sit back and be entertained (I guess you mainly pay to enjoy a movie on a large screen with surround sound?).  A set of Yahtzee dice costs can provide endless hours of fun, that does not main that they a worth more than a couple of dollars.

    In this sandbox you can do nothing more than in a very bare bones version of KSP.

    And there is no mod support (Scott Manley mentioned it in this very video).

    And there is especially no promise to deliver more.

    It boggles the mind how many people are there to buy an empty shell of a game at absurd prices and keep this  .. business scheme going.

     

  16. 2 hours ago, Rocket Farmer said:

    Let me get this straight.  As a fellow 10+ year Kerbal player I’ve logged somewhere around 1,500 hours.  I originally paid $30.  You probably have as many hours as I do so it’s cost you $0.02/hour for entertainment.

     

    Yet Somehow you don’t think its sequel is worth $50 because it isn’t finished?  How exactly do you value things?

    KSP is a sandbox. The 1500 hours were YOUR effort, not Squad's. The price is for the effort that the company put into the game. The $10 that KSP costs most of the time on Steam is a fair appreciation of Squads effort.

    Also keep in mind that you pay the $50 for the game that you see exactly now. The publisher could stop the development next week without any legal repercussions. You get no right to any completed game whatsoever.

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